Bright Lights Cast Long Shadows Part 1: Even Stars Can Die
by Myth979
Summary: Mirkwood was a dreary place for a young elvish girl who longed only to do great deeds – or at least deeds. (What did you expect when you named your child after a celestial body?)
1. Chapter 1

Morwinyon was four when her mother disappeared. She could not say her father changed after that, exactly, but neither was he exactly the same. She never recalled Mirkwood swarming with visitors, due only in part to the giant spiders, but after her mother few left to visit other places either. Now no one visited, and Mirkwood was a dreary place for a young elvish girl who longed only to do great deeds – or at least _deeds_.

So now, a little over two centuries later, she sat in her windowseat and watched her brother go out with a group of scouts, Tauriel at his right hand, all armed and ready for battle.

Morwinyon was very much afraid her father would never think her ready for battle. Her weapons hung on the wall, used only privately since her few disastrous ventures with the scouts. No one had died and no one had been hurt, but that was almost the problem. Nothing had happened. She had thought her squad particularly lucky until she had heard two of those who had accompanied her whispering about the adjusted patrol schedule.

She and her fellow scouts, who referred to themselves as her guards in this conversation, were sent out only after another group had cleaned out the area they were to patrol by order of the king.

"Morwinyon," her father said when she had stammered out her mortification to him later, tripping over her words in her fury, "I was only trying to keep you safe."

Something had boiled up inside her then, something beyond anger, and she turned on her heel and walked out. Thranduil did not readjust the patrols. Morwinyon did not go out again – let everyone who could do real work, she thought. She did not know how Legolas had avoided their father's overprotectiveness, except that he had been an adult long before Morwinyon had been born. Perhaps her father had grown used to thinking of him as an adult.

"There is a fire in us," Laeriel had told her daughter once. "I know not if it is for good or ill, but it is there either way, and it is not comfortable. It will never be: it is not _supposed_ to be. We must do something with it, I think, or we will burn from the inside out."

Morwinyon had failed to impart the idea to Thranduil.

So she sat at her windowsill and stared out at the forest, feeling spent and too full of energy at the same time, hands tingling with a need to use them.

"I am an adult," she told the forest outside her window. "I do not need his permission, not really."

The trees did not deign to reply.

She was still looking out the window when Tauriel and Legolas returned. They were much earlier than expected – only two meals had been delivered to Morwinyon's door since they had left. She had been picking desultorily at a pile of mixed greens, book open on the window ledge, when her brother and friend came over the bridge with a company of dwarves in tow.

She sat up, setting aside tray and fork and leaning out, going so far as to open the casement. She had never met a dwarf for obvious reasons, but she had read about them, as she had read about the Dunedain and the horselords and anything and anyone else she could find books or scrolls about. And dwarves were not evil, as orcs were, or swayed easily to the shadow, as her brother told her men so often were. They could not be _so_ much trouble – and surely her father would not refuse hospitality to enemies of the shadow, whatever race they belonged to.

Tauriel looked up while crossing the bridge and saw her leaning out the window and raised a hand just enough to wave to Morwinyon before turning her attention back to the dwarves. Legolas, too, looked up, and smiled ever so slightly. Some of the dwarves followed their line of sight, squinting. Morwinyon wondered if they could see her – she knew that dwarves' eyesight was not nearly as keen as elves'. How much worse was it, though? She leaned out farther, bracing herself on the window ledge, but the dwarves were herded inside before she could study them as much as she would like.

She sat back, leaving the casement open. A breeze stirred the pages of the book she had put aside, leaving it open to an artist's rendering of her parents' storied defeat of Dagnir. The dragon looked cowed as it flinched away from her mother, whose sword gleamed brighter than anything else on the page. Even from the back Laeriel gave the impression of surety and strength. Morwinyon wanted to be like that: every well-meaning comment on her resemblance to her mother stung, reminding her that she would never _be_ like her mother, not really, not unless she actually did something with her time besides practicing drills alone or wheedling Tauriel into sparring with her.

Sometime, years ago, Legolas had said very dryly that Thranduil's full confidence could only be given to someone who had slain a dragon. Since only one person living who had done so, and that person was Thranduil himself, the elf her brother had been consoling had taken themselves off with a sigh. The offhanded remark had stuck with the young elf lurking in the shadows.

Morwinyon had not considered literally slaying a dragon. Not really. Some monumental task, though. Something to make her father take her seriously. And there would have to be good reason for her to do it, or else her father would send someone else without ever considering her.

She had still read – and reread – everything available on the subject of dragons. Thus had she learned that Smaug the Golden still lived, and had sacked Erebor in the year 2770: the same year of her birth, and only a bare month earlier. Ever since she had felt a sort of proprietary interest. Not in the mountain – her father's halls were carved from rock and root, and she did not see how halls carved from a mountain would be appreciably different – but with Smaug himself.

It was not entirely right, to have such a fascination with dragons, let alone to christen one in your mind as 'your' dragon. Dragons did, after all, burn buildings and raze towns and eat people, and by all accounts they did it for fun. Morwinyon had come to terms with her own peculiarities long ago, though, when she had tried asking Legolas about a sort of unspecified _want_ low in her belly when she looked at certain elves that had nothing to do with her fondness (or lack thereof) for the elf in question. Legolas had not known what she meant, and neither had Tauriel. Morwinyon was not going to ask her father: even then, before the scouting fiasco, she had not thought he would give her any answer did not keep her the version of 'safe' he ascribed to. Having a slight obsession with dragonlore was at least understandable _._

Also understandable, if slightly more frowned upon, was her tendency to lurk around, above, or below Thranduil's audience chamber, for how else was she to learn anything? The habit had begun as a way to avoid her minders when Tauriel or Legolas was away. Those minders rarely had the creativity or bravery to look for her in such exalted quarters: perhaps if they had, Morwinyon would not have minded them minding her so much. She had gotten even better at hiding over the years. These days no one bothered to look for her if she disappeared, even for a day or two.

Now, too, she knew places to perch where she could overhear whole meetings or just watch her father as he stared off into nothing. Before she had gotten the knack for it, she had asked Tauriel for news. Tauriel never lied to her if Morwinyon asked, but she had also often told Morwinyon that she was not allowed to speak of things.

So Morwinyon watched Thranduil's audience with the dwarf who claimed right of ownership over the mountain currently inhabited by _her_ dragon, and considered.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dwarves, Tauriel?" Morwinyon asked.

Tauriel did not jump. She was used to Morwinyon's abrupt appearances by now. "Dwarves," she agreed cautiously, turning to look at the young princess. Morwinyon had grown into the gangly limbs of her adolescence. She was taller than her father, if only barely, and had her mother's dark hair and eyes with the particularly Noldorin heavy lids that Legolas had not inherited. "Most of them are not friendly in the least."

"But some are?"

"Some," Tauriel allowed, still a little gratified by the awe in the youngest's eyes when she had saved him from the spiders. "Your father would never allow you to speak to them."

Morwinyon blinked innocently. "I am not asking my father."

"You have not _asked_ me," Tauriel pointed out, starting on her way to Thranduil's quarters. "I should not let you either."

"How dangerous could they be?"

"Very," Tauriel muttered with a sense of foreboding.

"I will not go without you," Morwinyon wheedled.

"Good," Tauriel said, and Morwinyon sighed and left her before she set turned the last corner before Thranduil's rooms.

Some ten minutes later, Tauriel was much less inclined to consider her king's wishes on any matter, let alone the overprotectiveness of his daughter.

"Do not give him hope where there is none," she muttered under her breath, adding a certain high-pitched edge to her imitation of Thranduil's lofty tones. "As if you could stop us if I wished."

Legolas knew she was not interested, and that was the only discussion needed on the subject. Thranduil's input was not only unwelcome, it was inappropriate: his proprietary – near paternal, if she was honest – interest in her over the centuries did not give him the right to forbid her to court or be courted.

So when she turned the corner where Morwinyon had left her before and found Morwinyon being talked at by Tundir with the same expression she always wore when he was in her presence – boredom edging into irritation – Tauriel caught her arm and kept walking.

"Forgive me, Tundir. Morwinyon and I have business to attend to."

"Of course," he said. Tauriel knew he bowed because he always did, a too low dip with a sweep of his arm, but she did not look back at him. "I will see you at the feat, Lady Mirwen."

Morwinyon's lip curled at the sound of her father-name, but she did not turn back to scold him. He was not being inappropriate, after all, just over-formal and more than a little pretentious. Even the newest scouts knew she preferred her mother-name, and those that felt uncomfortable using it could always call her by her title.

"He caught me as I was waiting for you," Morwinyon told Tauriel. "I did not want to risk missing your return. Is all well with my father?"

"He is in as good health as he ever is," Tauriel said.

"Is all well with _you_ with my father," Morwinyon clarified.

"Let us go speak with the dwarves," Tauriel said instead of answering.

Morwinyon grinned, and Tauriel escorted her to the dungeons before either of them thought better of it.

* * *

Fíli was not discommoded outside of the obvious. No one was particularly cramped, no one had been beaten, and food had been delivered. He could even see his brother if he craned his head a little. If he wasn't being held against his will, he might have called himself comfortable.

Or he would have, before an elf planted herself outside of his cell door, just out of reach in case he tried something. Not that he would have.

Probably.

"Hello," she said in slightly accented Westron.

"Hello," he said cautiously.

"I heard you had some trouble with the spiders," she said.

"Does anyone not have trouble with those spiders?" he asked dryly.

The elf woman thought about that for a moment and decided on, "No. But Tauriel saved you."

"Which one was Tauriel?" Fíli asked, looking down the hall to see if Kíli had any idea what was going on. All he saw in that direction was red hair.

"The captain," his visitor said as if it was self-evident.

Fíli looked back up at her. She was very tall.

"Where did you come from?"

Ah. Interrogation, if somewhat inept. That made more sense; perhaps the elves did not keep many prisoners. Perhaps most of the would-be prisoners were eaten by spiders. He said nothing.

"You have unusual hair," she offered after a while.

He had unusual _hair?_ Did she mean for a dwarf? Was this some kind of lead-in to… he couldn't think of what it might lead in _to_.

"I am not very adept at pleasant conversation," she said, sighing heavily.

Clearly.

She set her shoulders and raised her chin even higher. "My name is Morwinyon. What is yours?"

"Fíli," he said grudgingly. Her captain had no doubt heard it already.

Her lips moved: was she repeating it to herself?

"Does it mean something?" she asked.

"Does it – it's a _name_ , it doesn't have to mean anything. Are you new to this?"

"I have never met a dwarf before," she said apologetically. "Did I say something rude?"

Fíli stared at her. She blinked back at him. This was, bar none, the oddest conversation he had ever had, and he had conversed with Bilbo _plenty_. "I don't think you're supposed to care about being polite when you're interrogating someone."

Morwinyon frowned. He did not at all find the way she furrowed her brows adorable, because she was almost two feet taller than he and also his captor. And an elf, and too slender (how did elves even _do anything_ without breaking, honestly), and for heaven's sake would she mind slouching a little?

"I do not believe you are," she agreed. "I am not sure how that is relevant?"

"I am almost positive you are supposed to be interrogating me," he said. Just as you were not supposed to care if you were polite when interrogating someone, he was sure you were not supposed to remind people that they were supposed to be interrogating you, but he'd had to deal with magic forests and giant spiders today. Maybe the rules were a little turned around.

"Oh!" she said, expression clearing. "No, my father does not know I am here. Not that he would send me, anyway."

He nodded despite feeling like he'd missed an important piece of information somewhere. She opened her mouth to say something else, but an officious voice interrupted her in Elvish.

"It is rude to speak a language not everyone present understands," she informed the interrupting guard stiffly in Westron. "Especially when I know you speak acceptable Westron."

"Lady Mirwen," the elf began, but the guard captain appeared at Morwinyon's side.

"I was not aware your shift had begun, Tundir. Surely you would have mentioned it earlier if you had taken someone else's."

The unfortunate Tundir did not flinch at the oblique reprimand. "I did not think Lady Mirwen should be exposed to such dangerous influences."

Morwinyon muttered something under her breath in Elvish, directly contradicting her earlier admonishment.

"They are in cells, Tundir," the captain said patiently. "I would never put Morwinyon in danger."

"I am not sure you are best qualified to decide."

Morwinyon snapped at him in Elvish. The captain put a hand on her arm. "It is time we were leaving anyway – your father will be looking for you at the feast. Say goodbye if you choose – Tundir and I have a scheduling conflict to discuss."

Fíli watched the two guards walk off with raised eyebrows and said, "I don't suppose you'd like to translate."

To his surprise, she replied, "I told him Tauriel was far more qualified than he to decide my safety, and the day that changed would be the day I married a dragon."

"I take it it loses something in translation."

"Some," she admitted. "Thank you for speaking to me."

"I can't say it's been a pleasure," he said, "but it could have been so much worse."

She wrinkled her nose at him and followed Tundir and the captain.

"I think I was just stared at by an elvish princess," Fíli said after a moment, that missing piece of information from before slotting into place as all the other pieces – personal protection, noble address, pretentious hangers-on – clicked together.

"You should have tried to hold her hostage," Thorin retorted.

"She wouldn't come any closer," Fíli replied absently. She'd given him a different name than the one Tundir had called her. Which did she like better?

"Kíli could have held that captain hostage," Dwalin suggested. "She got close enough."

"Hostage with what?" Kíli demanded. "She could snap my wrists quicker than breathing and then where would I be? Did I tell you how she killed those spiders?"

The entire company, Fíli among them, groaned, because yes, Kíli had told them how the elf captain had killed the spiders: many times, at length, and with too many adjectives.

"Two almost at once!" Kíli said instead of heeding their obvious disinterest. "And one knife!"

"Truly a marvel," Balin said. "Does anyone have any ideas for escape, or will we rot down here forever?"

"I don't suppose Fíli or Kíli could talk with those elves?" Ori asked. "They seemed nice."

"I could _definitely_ talk to Tauriel," Kíli said. "She's very nice."

"I can kill him, right?" Dwalin asked the company at large. "What's the point in having an heir and a spare if you can't get rid of one for annoying you?"

Fíli sighed and rested his head against the bars of his cell.


	3. Chapter 3

The feast was going as her father's feasts usually did, which meant that most everyone lower than the high table was having a marvelous drunken time and everyone _at_ the high table was having a miserable drunken time.

That was not entirely fair. The councilors were having a miserable drunken time. Morwinyon and Legolas were having a miserable sober time, because he said he was too irritated with the dwarves to drink. Morwinyon could not classify what sort of time Thranduil was having, sober or otherwise.

"Your wine will not disappear if you stare at it," Legolas said.

Morwinyon took a sip and made a face. She was not opposed to wine on principle, but in actual practice she had never managed to enjoy the taste. Her father's steward plucked the cup from her hand and took a long pull from it as Legolas handed over the water pitcher.

"I am going to need more of this," Inwiel said. "Your father always gets maudlin after these things, I do not know why he continues to put them on."

"Joy and happiness," Legolas said, straight-faced, as Morwinyon poured herself a cup of water. "I am never maudlin after these things."

"Liar," Inwiel retorted, and took another gulp of wine.

Near the head of one of the long tables, Tauriel looked up at the siblings and raised her eyebrows. Morwinyon waved, but Legolas looked away with a tiny frown.

"Has father said something to you about Tauriel?" Morwinyon asked.

He gave her a startled look. "What would he say to me of Tauriel?"

Before she could think of what to say, a guard hurried in to whisper in Tauriel's ear. She shot to her feet and strode out, jerking her head at a few of the less inebriated guards around her. Legolas was immediately distracted.

"Something to do with the dwarves," he said, standing.

"An escape?" Inwiel asked, putting aside her wine.

Morwinyon stood too. If she apprehended the dwarves – did she want to apprehend the dwarves? Fíli had been interesting. Then again, if they escaped and killed Smaug, her chance at glory died a fiery death. No doubt they would head straight to the Lonely Mountain and –

"Do _not_ go looking for them, Morwinyon," Legolas ordered, and left before she could reply yea or nay.

Inwiel, wise to the tricks of her liege-lord's daughter (or perhaps just wise to the tricks of daughters: she did have two), caught Morwinyon's sleeve. "Promise me you will not try anything stupid."

"Define stupid," Morwinyon said absently. The dwarves would go to the Lonely Mountain, no doubt clearing out danger in their wake. Would that path be safe enough for an elf girl alone? How long would it take her to fetch her weapons and armor? Did she have time to pack food? Was foraging on the way there feasible?

"Do not try to stop them," Inwiel clarified. "Promise me."

"I promise not to try and stop the dwarves," Morwinyon said.

* * *

There had been many fewer guards on the doors and hallways than usual as Morwinyon slipped through them, which made sneaking through the halls even easier than usual. The main gates gave her some pause: she had never tried to leave her father's halls without permission before. She was trying to decide whether she would need a distraction or if she could walk out on the weight of her rank alone (doubtful, but possible) when Tauriel arrived, geared as if for a long patrol.

"You are going out alone, Tauriel?" one of the guards asked.

Tauriel clapped him on the shoulder as she walked by. "I move faster alone."

"Save a few orcs for us," the other guard called after her. "You know my wife appreciates it when I smell of battle!"

Morwinyon knew for a fact that Cevendis, the baker-wife of this particular guard, did _not_ appreciate it when Súliel smelled of battle, because she had heard Cevendis scolding her about it on multiple occasions. Sometimes other people's humor escaped her. She appreciated it now, however, since Tauriel's departure and the resulting ribbing between the guards allowed her to scale one of the many roots twining the gateway and drop to the ground out of sight to one side.

She was out. It was not too late to go back, not even too late to go back without being discovered. In the distance Tauriel disappeared into the trees.

Morwinyon hurried to follow.

* * *

Tauriel followed the river, occasionally switching sides to make sure she did not miss the dwarves' exit. Morwinyon took note of when her friend stopped to look at things and did so as well, testing herself to see if she could remember her lessons in tracking. She was proud of herself on that score, at least. She was less proud of the way she could not help but flinch at nearly every sound she heard. Every time she went back a little ways to investigate.

Logically she knew that if a sound was louder than the river it was likely not someone attempting stealth, but how was she to hear sounds _quieter_ than the river? Once again she circled back and around, though this time it was due partly to the bare, rocky shore Tauriel stopped on. There was nowhere to hide there, and Morwinyon had not decided how to declare her presence or if she should declare it at all.

When she returned, Legolas stood with Tauriel. Morwinyon had not heard him behind her at any point, unless one of those noises she had been paranoid about had, in fact, been someone, but he had not heard her ahead of him so she considered them even. She crouched behind the distant shrubbery to listen.

"Tell me, my friend," Tauriel was saying. "When did we let evil become stronger than us?"

Tauriel really was the best of them, Morwinyon thought fondly. Morwinyon just wanted to slay a dragon: Tauriel wanted to save the whole of Middle Earth.

Though Morwinyon supposed saving the whole of Middle Earth would be a feat worthy of her father's respect too.

She shook her head once, sharply, and that was her undoing.

"Show yourself!" Legolas called, bow drawn and aimed.

Tauriel put a hand on his arm. "Morwinyon," she said wearily. "Did you really need to follow us?"

Morwinyon sighed and stood. "I followed _you_ ," she said, just to keep the record straight. "Legolas had not left when I did."

Legolas was swearing fervently under his breath as he lowered his bow and spun to stalk furiously away.

"I am not incompetent," Morwinyon said in response to a particular line of invective, stung by criticism from this usually encouraging corner. "I hid my trail from you, did I not? And Tauriel did not see me until just then."

"Tauriel was distracted," Legolas retorted from the water's edge. "She was tracking someone else."

"So will the orcs," she pointed out. "Tauriel, tell him I can come."

"Tauriel, tell her she _cannot_ ," Legolas retorted.

Tauriel closed her eyes and looked to be questioning her life and choice of friendships. "Tracking and hiding are different than fighting and killing."

"I was trained the same as both of you," Morwinyon said. "It is no fault of mine that my father will not let me use that training."

"Exactly!" Legolas snapped. "Adar has expressly forbade you-"

"He has not," Morwinyon said. "Not in so many words. And you have a lot of nerve, telling me what Adar would order when here you are, disobeying orders he has actually given."

Tauriel winced. Legolas just looked angrier.

"I will not go back," Morwinyon said after several deep breaths. "You cannot make me."

That was, of course, incorrect. Either one could probably subdue her and drop her in front of her father without too much trouble. They would have to go with her, though, and she did not think either of them were willing to risk not being able to go back out again.

Tauriel and Legolas exchanged glances.

"Please?" Morwinyon asked.

Legolas sighed, deflating. "Adar is already going to kill me, I suppose."

"You will follow orders," Tauriel said. "It will be as if you are apprenticed to me. You will not leave my side unless I tell you otherwise, and if I tell you otherwise you will do as I tell you immediately. _With no questions asked_. Understood?"

Morwinyon nodded quickly.

"You are almost more trouble than you are worth," Legolas told her, but he came over and ruffled her hair.

Tauriel beckoned, and Morwinyon went to her. The older woman checked over the straps and ties of Morwinyon's armor, tightening one and loosening another, before pronouncing herself satisfied. Then, almost absently, she neatened Morwinyon's hair.

The gesture was a familiar one – she had done the same thing for over two centuries – and Morwinyon felt a brief swell of affection for the young woman who had never made her friend's little sister feel unwelcome, even when that little sister had followed her everywhere. Tauriel was not her mother, more like an extremely forgiving older sister, but Tauriel was what she had, and anyway Morwinyon did not think even Laeriel could have been a better scout.

"Where do you think the dwarves went?" Tauriel asked.

"I would have stayed in the water," Morwinyon said honestly. "Orcs cannot swim very well – but I am not sure, can dwarves?"

"Probably not," Legolas said.

"Do we know where they are going?" Tauriel asked, ignoring Legolas.

"Their mountain," Morwinyon replied, knowing Tauriel was leading her to the answer. "Do we go there?"

"We follow the orcs that follow the dwarves," Legolas said. "Probably they will catch up before they reach the mountain."

"And the dwarves have no provisions," Tauriel added. "Where will they go?"

Morwinyon knew something of Mirkwood's trade and economy from listening in on meetings, just as she knew geography from her atlases. "Laketown? If the humans will shelter dwarves who are clearly running from something."

"Men and dwarves will do nearabout anything for gold," Legolas said. It was a fact, the way he said it, and he did not seem bitter about it.

"So, Laketown."

"Yes," Tauriel said, sounding proud. It was silly to be proud that she was – she had practically given Morwinyon the answer – but Morwinyon could not help it.

Tauriel set off, and the prince and princess of Mirkwood followed her.


	4. Chapter 4

Walking along the lakeshore yielded no signs of dwarves, but signs of orc there were plenty. Legolas was pleased; Morwinyon could not help but notice that Tauriel seemed discomfited. She did not think Tauriel wanted to follow the dwarves for the same reasons she did, but it became rapidly clearer that she _did_ want to follow them.

"Maybe they will kill each other for us," Legolas said. "All of our problems solved. No more of the orcs and no dragon woken."

Morwinyon glanced at Tauriel and saw her frown.

"The dwarves are not our enemies."

"The dwarves are trespassers who would loose a dragon on the world," Legolas said. "We would be well rid of them. I know you are curious about the younger one, Tauriel, but he is probably dead already."

Morwinyon thought briefly that she too would loose a dragon on the world, after a fashion, before the rest of his words sank in. "Which younger one?" she demanded, stopping in her tracks. "The one with golden hair? Why would he be dead?"

"Kili," Tauriel said. "The dark haired one."

Oh. That was alright then. She started walking again.

"He took a morgul shaft to the leg," Tauriel continued. Her tone did not waver, but Morwinyon knew Tauriel very well. There was the slightest bit of stiffness in the way she moved now, the awkwardness Tauriel only displayed when she did not know the rules in a given situation. Perhaps it was _not_ alright.

"Perhaps he does live," Morwinyon offered, not without her own awkwardness. She was not at her best when she did not know the rules either, and she was not used to offering comfort. "Dwarves are hardy folk, from what I have read."

Legolas muttered something under his breath too soft for even elvish ears to catch and stalked ahead. Morwinyon shrugged at Tauriel, who patted her shoulder.

* * *

It took them three days to skirt the edge of the lake – it was dark for a second time when they reached Laketown and ascertained that the orcs were actually inside the walls. Morwinyon was sure they could have gone faster, though she did not say so. Legolas already looked out of sorts: any complaining on her part might lead to outright sulking. Tauriel had gotten more and more tense the more they gained on the orcs.

"Stay with me," Tauriel reminded Morwinyon as they all checked over their weaponry one last time.

"Or go where you tell me," Morwinyon finished obediently. "I remember."

They ghosted over the rooftops with bows drawn, which was at least partly familiar territory for Morwinyon. She had never had such a nice view in her father's halls, though. She was distracted briefly by the stars and found herself trailing slightly behind.

So it was she who saw the orc attempt to kill someone who might have been a dwarf. She fired without thinking further. Legolas glanced back at the whisper of sound and nodded shortly.

The maybe-dwarf was definitely not Fíli: she saw no hint of golden hair. Morwinyon sped up again.

* * *

Kili was getting worse. Nothing Oin did for him seemed to help, and Kili was being a brave about the whole thing as Fíli had ever seen anyone be, but he was desperately afraid he was going to lose his brother to a knee wound.

He had been prepared for injury, perhaps even a persistent limp. Plenty of dwarves got around with limps and worse – Bifur being on the very edge of the _worse_ spectrum – and anyway Kili was a _prince_. He could be a diplomat. He might have been a good one, if he ever got over that reckless streak: Kili was genuinely curious about other cultures. It didn't seem fair that he might die before he got to learn much about the elves.

"I need herbs," Oin said, but human medicines were apparently lacking.

"We could use some elvish medicine right about now," Kili gasped with a grin before biting his lip on another groan of pain.

"If your lady love appears from nowhere we'll have some," Oin said tartly.

"I don't think they let princesses out of strongholds to heal dwarves," Fíli said.

"Oh, that's just what we need," Oin groused as Bofur ran out the door. "Kili, you are under no circumstances to even think on any daughter of that blaggard king."

Fíli winced. He didn't know why he thought Oin had been talking to him. His brother was dying, and now all he could think about was whether Morwinyon was any good at healing. He'd met her once: this was ridiculous on multiple counts.

"Tauriel is a _guard captain_ ," Kili corrected barely intelligibly through his panting breaths.

"Keep arguing with me, that's a good sign," Oin said.

The rumble that shook the town made Fíli close his eyes for a long moment. Thorin had woken the dragon. Was Fíli to be the only heir of Durin left?

Tilda gasped, and Fíli was reminded forcibly that his was not the only family at risk.

"You should leave us," he told Bard. "Take your children and go."

"There is nowhere to go," Bard said, grim and quiet.

Sigrid clutched at Bain's collar as if she would drag her little brother to safety, one hand outstretched after Tilda, who asked, "Are we going to die, Da?"

The question felt like a knife, a quick, clean stab to the heart. His family had done what they wanted, and this little girl – he did not know how old she was, human ages never seemed to line up quite properly with dwarves' – was paying for it. Fíli was going to be sick.

He missed the rest of the conversation, but he heard the clatter of pots and pans falling and opened his eyes to see Bard holding a large black arrow.

"Not if I kill it first," Bard said.

It was all very inspiring and Fíli got caught up in the moment right up to the point Bard and Bain left and he realized he had been left with Sigrid, who at least seemed the sensible sort, and Tilda, who seemed much less sensible by virtue of being eleven. _Eleven_. Humans aged more quickly than dwarves, Fíli reminded himself, but _eleven_?

"I'm fifteen," Sigrid said when she heard him mutter something to Oin, sounding like she thought it meant she was vastly older.

"Right," Fíli said, and tried not to feel faint. "Erm. What would you be doing right now normally?"

"Putting Tilda to bed," she said, pointedly not looking at Kili.

"Right," he said again.

"Do you not want to sit with your brother?" Sigrid asked. "I've got to neaten up, and I know if it were Bain or Tilda I wouldn't want to worry about a couple of children who are used to taking care of themselves."

He didn't really have anything to say to that, but he helped her clean up the kitchen until Bain returned and Sigrid put him to work instead. Sigrid patted Fili on the shoulder and sent him politely but firmly to sit with Kili, as if fifteen really were vastly older, and he settled beside the bed, trying to stay out of Oin's way.

Which was, of course, when the orcs came in through the ceiling. Sigrid screamed while they were recovering from that shock, trying to yank the door closed against another orc. It was too strong for her. It was too strong for _Fíli_ , when he tackled it after Sigrid screamed again and very prudently rolled under the table, even more prudently dragging the first sibling she could get her hands on with her.

Fíli was thrown backwards, sliding inelegantly across the width of the table and tumbling to the ground. Broken crockery scraped across his back; he shoved himself to his feet just as Morwinyon's precious Tauriel appeared from nowhere. The blond elf who had been with her when they were captured followed her now: was he perhaps her lieutenant?

He didn't have time to ponder further – Bain was nearly run through by an orc, and Fili could not let Bard's hospitality be repaid by dead children. He shoved the boy down with his siblings as Kili leapt on the orc and Tauriel dispatched it handily as an arrow flew through a window and took another orc in the eye.

"You killed them all," Bain said wonderingly when it was over moments later.

"There are others," the blond elf said. "Tauriel, come."

Which meant they were at least equals: you didn't use that tone with a superior officer. Unless elves did. Tauriel did not follow immediately, as Fili had expected. She stared at Kili, clearly worried even before Oin helpfully informed everyone that they were losing him. As if they hadn't known that before.

Tauriel looked at the other elf as if asking permission.

"Tauriel," he said again, a clear order without the slightest care for the imminent death of Fili's brother, and left.

She hesitated, went to the door, and hesitated again.

"Tauriel?" Morwinyon asked, landing neatly on the rail outside. She smiled briefly at Fili and looked again at her friend, asking a question in elvish and gesturing after their departed companion. Asking if they should follow?

"Can you help him?" Fili asked. Morwinyon cocked her head at Tauriel as if she had not heard him. "Well?"

She jerked her attention back to him, wide-eyed, as if surprised to be addressed. "Me?"

Before he could answer, Tauriel gasped. Everyone jumped and clutched at weaponry, but she was taking a plant from just-arrived Bofur.

"Tauriel?" Morwinyon asked again.

"I am going to save him," Tauriel said. "Morwinyon, keep watch."


	5. Chapter 5

Morwinyon waited on the porch, arrow knocked and bow held steady, well aware that Tauriel was probably trying to keep her out of the way. That was fine: Morwinyon knew a lot of theory about healing and herbs but had never had any actual practice with them, not even the way she had been able to practice fighting with Tauriel or sneaking on her own. The youngest human came out with her.

"All they're going is holding him down," the girl said. "He's much heavier than I am."

"Probably," Morwinyon agreed when the girl looked at her as if expecting a response. "Do you know them well?"

The human made a face. "They showed up in our house three days ago. The blond one's nice – he saved Bain earlier."

Morwinyon felt a sort of proprietary smugness over that. _Her_ dwarf saved people. Tauriel's was dying in a corner.

Though she did hope he did not actually die in that corner. It would upset Tauriel.

"What's your name?" the girl asked.

"Morwinyon," Morwinyon replied, realizing she probably should have offered it earlier. "And yours?"

"I'm Tilda."

"It is a pretty name," Morwinyon offered.

Tilda shrugged, sitting against the wall of the house. "Yours is long."

It was only three syllables, Morwinyon thought, stung, but did not comment. Tilda looked nervously back into the house, where Kíli's muffled cries of pain could be heard.

"Do not worry overmuch," Morwinyon said. "If anyone can save him, it will be Tauriel."

"Is she going to cut the leg off?" Tilda asked.

Morwinyon blinked at her. "I do not believe that is her plan?"

Tilda nodded and stared off at nothing. Morwinyon reflected that, had there been any children younger than she in Mirkwood, she still would not have been put in charge of them. Clearly she did not have the knack.

Tilda and Morwinyon kept each other company in silence until Tauriel stepped outside.

"He lives," she said. "Anything to report?"

"The dragon is taking its time coming," Morwinyon said.

"So is Da," Tilda contributed.

"But no orcs and no curious humans."

"Aside from the obvious?" Tauriel asked, giving Tilda a small smile. She turned back to Morwinyon. "Bain says there is an alarm we could ring to alert the humans to the danger, if they have not already noticed."

Tilda muttered something about the people of Laketown not noticing if their roofs were on fire if the Master said nothing.

Tauriel nodded gravely. "So you and the dwarves will take the children away. I will catch up when I have sounded the alarm."

"Or," Morwinyon said, sensing her chance of battling Smaug dwindling, " _I_ could sound the alarm, and _you_ could take the dwarves and the children to safety."

Tauriel raised her eyebrows.

"I am not questioning you," Morwinyon said quickly. "Not really! Only what if your archer has difficulties? I will not be of use then. And the children like you better!"

"I do like you better," Tilda said. "Morwhosit isn't very encouraging."

"Morwinyon is very capable, and you would not come to harm with her," Tauriel told Tilda firmly.

The praise was gratifying, but Morwinyon still needed to fight a dragon. Escorting three children and four dwarves from a city would not convince her father of her competence: her mother could have done that in fifteen minutes after waking up in the morning.

She was marshalling her arguments when Tauriel said, "Morwinyon, I _do not have time to argue_."

There were other ways to prove herself to her father, she decided. Probably. Ways that did not involve Tauriel's displeasure. Morwinyon did not have to be happy about it.

"I will see them on their way," Morwinyon said. Tauriel would know she was sulking, but probably no one else could tell.

Tauriel squeezed her shoulder once before heading off. Morwinyon let Sigrid handle the packing while she and Fíli sorted out what weaponry they had between them. It turned out to be a surprising amount: Laketown had not stinted in this, though she wondered why it seemed to stint with its own people.

"Do we need weapons?" Sigrid asked, interrupting the argument with Fíli over whether or not Bain should be armed. Morwinyon was of the opinion that if he knew how to use one he should have it – there was a dragon around here somewhere – but Fíli was worried about arming children.

"Your people don't seem all that pleased to help each other," Kíli said as, having won his own argument with Fíli, he helped Sigrid with wrapping food. His brother had managed to ensure he was sitting, at least. Morwinyon watched him carefully, but he did not seem on the edge of a relapse.

"Kíli," Fíli sighed as Bain took the moment to grab a knife.

"It's true," Kíli protested. "We don't want someone blaming them or their father for, well. Us."

Morwinyon handed Sigrid a bow and quiver. She had seen the telltale calluses on her hands.

"I draw the line at the eleven-year-old," Fíli said, snatching another dagger from Tilda, who sighed as if heavily put upon.

"Everyone armed?" Morwinyon asked. "Food packed?"

"Do elves eat the same things we do?" Sigrid asked doubtfully even as Bofur chivied her down the stairs to the water.

"Probably," Morwinyon said as she followed. "Get in the boat."

Fíli hoisted Tilda in when she would have stopped and asked for more specifics on elf diet, Kíli clambered determinedly in on his own despite Oin's hovering, Bain followed his sisters and the dwarves meekly, and Morwinyon climbed in after them all. It was a close fit, and the boat rode low in the water.

The bell began to toll just as fire rained down and the screaming began. Not even Tauriel, it seemed, could outrun a dragon. Tilda whimpered, and immediately glared ferociously when the rest of them glanced at her automatically. Sigrid hugged her close with an arm around her shoulders.

"Sent out with the children and the injured," Morwinyon muttered, catching the edge of a larger boat and shoving it away. Their own boat wavered, cold water splashing inside, and she grimaced.

"How old are you?" Tilda demanded.

"Centuries uncounted," Morwinyon retorted.

Fíli snorted as Bain hushed his little sister. "How old, really?" he asked.

She sighed. "One-hundred and seventy-one years."

Kíli choked.

"I am an adult!" she snapped, misreading his surprise.

"We're going to die," Bofur said. "We have a teenage elvish lady and my two teenage princes and who knows about the humans and we are going to die."

" _Adult_ ," Morwinyon corrected.

"Princess," Fíli said at the same time.

"Dead," Oin agreed gloomily.

"Da!" Tilda cried.

Their attention snapped to where she pointed. Bard stood on the tower holding the alarm bell, firing arrow after arrow at the dragon as it slithered through the air, burning things when it suited him and knocking roofs in with his tail or talons when it did not. Other arrows joined Bard's, but all were ineffectual. Smaug laughed as one struck under his chin and dangled for a moment, only to fall.

"Tauriel will be there," Morwinyon said. There had not been enough time between the bell's ringing and the dragon's arrival – no time at all, really – and Tauriel had liked the human children. She would not leave their father to die. Tauriel might kill the dragon, but it might kill her instead, and arrows did not seem to have much effect on the dragon's hide.

"Nobody do anything stupid," Fíli said just as Bain leapt from the boat. Morwinyon patted her dwarf on the head and followed the human child.


	6. Chapter 6

Morwinyon had not followed Bain for long. He knew the town better, and truthfully – shamefully – she had not chased him very hard. She felt badly about that.

Not badly enough to stop watching Smaug and go after him again, but still. Badly. Anyway, Bain would be safer when the dragon was dead.

Smaug did not move like any bird she had ever seen, and he did not crawl over buildings like a lizard: he _slithered_ , writhing through the sky, eeling around the taller towers that crumbled and burned. He was very large, but then, Morwinyon had not expected anything else.

"Chiefest and greatest calamity of our age," she murmured. She wondered why Dagnir had not been chiefest and greatest. Perhaps because he had been defeated relatively quickly.

When Smaug reached the other end of Laketown, she scaled the side of a nearby still standing building, clambering onto the roof ad running for the man Tilda had called for. He still stood in the bell tower, still fired arrows that glanced harmlessly from golden scales. That was where Bain would go. That was where Tauriel would be.

Most of all, that was where her dragon was.

* * *

Tauriel was not, as a rule, fatalistic or maudlin. When her parents had died she had made the best of it, and when Thranduil went into one of his moods she knew there would be an end, and when orcs came into her forest and tried to take her prisoners she hunted them down and killed them. Tauriel was the kind of person who saw a little girl fading away and looked for a way to fix it.

That being said, even she could see no way to defeat the dragon. Her arrows struck home, as the human's had, but Smaug never showed any signs of discomfort. Laeriel had wielded Delu when she and Thranduil went out to fight Dagnir, and Delu was legend – a killer sword for a killer queen, Tauriel's mother had said once, not unadmiringly, and everyone knew who had made it and subsequently died on it. Delu hung from Thranduil's waist now, and anyway Tauriel had not liked the feel of it the one time she had handled it. It felt _thirsty_

So Tauriel faced Smaug the Magnificent with an unnamed bow and unnamed knives, if it came to that, and thought bleakly that she would die disobedient to her king and her prince both. At least Morwinyon would leave with the children: she always obeyed the letter of her promises even if she was more lax regarding the spirit, and –

There was someone climbing the bell tower. A very small someone. One of the dwarves, Tauriel hoped passionately, but a closer look proved otherwise. Bain climbed the tower, an arrow nearly as big as he was in his hand.

"Oh, damn," Tauriel said with no surprise whatsoever as Morwinyon came into view.

* * *

Kili threw himself after Bain and Morwinyon before Fili could grab him. If Fili had been thinking straight he wouldn't have followed, but it was his brother running off to fight a dragon for elves he hardly knew and humans who were admittedly more kind than their party deserved. He never really thought straight when his brother was getting into trouble.

His brother, who was remarkably spry for someone who had been dying a very short time ago, had always been reckless, and so Fili had always been reckless with him in self-defense. Stopping KIli was akin to stopping a runaway horse – if you ran him in circles, eventually he calmed down, but if you tried to drag him to a stop he fought the bit and kept going until you fell by the wayside. Sometimes Fili envied him: Thorin and Dis had never smiled indulgently at Fili's less well-considered escapades.

"What is your plan, exactly?" he asked as he caught up.

"I was sort of hoping you had one," Kili admitted, which was exactly the answer Fili had expected. "But we can't leave Tauriel and Morwinyon and Bard to fight a dragon on their own."

"They have Bain too," Fili muttered, but it was a token protest at best. He knew they shouldn't have given Bain a weapon.

"Thorin woke him up," Kili insisted. "It's our _duty_."

Fili couldn't disagree. The screaming of Laketown's population made his heart hurt and his head ache, and they both gave especially strong throbs of pain when he thought the scream might be a child. "I don't suppose you remember where that knocked off scale is supposed to be."

"Breastbone," Kili said. "So only a mile or so of scales to go over, instead of twenty."

"Yours is a happy nature," Fili told him, unslinging the unfamiliar human bow from his back. "Let's go save your freakishly tall captain so she doesn't think you're _entirely_ incompetent."

"She's shorter than Morwinyon, you know."

Fili did not dignify that with an answer.

* * *

Smaug hovered over Bain and his father, jaws opening. Morwinyon could not tell if he meant to breath fire or eat them, but the point was moot: an arrow glanced off Smaug's eye ridge, barely missing the eye itself, and he flinched, turning away from Bard and Bain. Sigrid, feet braced wide atop a mostly standing building, accepted another arrow from Tilda, nocked it, drew, and let fly. Smaug jerked his head up just high enough that the arrow hit the hard knob of bone below his eye and fell.

Morwinyon wanted to applaud – not only had Sigrid had the nerve to join them, she had found a target that made the dragon nervous. Her satisfaction was short-lived, for Smaug took a deep breath, fire in his gullet kindling, and blew.

Bard screamed. Even Morwinyon shouted, but a moment later she saw Sigrid bobbing in the water, one arm holding Tilda firmly close to her as she clutched at a floating bit of debris. Morwinyon could not see any damage from where she was.

Smaug drew in another breath but had to duck away when Tauriel fired, aiming for his eye now. He turned on her now, already glowing, and Morwinyon realized that Tauriel would not run, or leap to the water as Sigrid had. If she did, Smaug would turn immediately back to the humans.

Tauriel bared her teeth and raised her bow, another arrow nocked.

"Smaug!" Morwinyon cried, as she had seen and heard her father do when he wanted immediate attention. Her voice seemed to leap forward, larger than usual, expanding and reaching for Smaug as if it too had a life of its own, deep and demanding. He turned as if he had no choice, as if her voice did have the power of her father's and the exception talent that went with her mother's, who so many had obeyed without considering otherwise. "I would have words with you!"

"You wait in shadows, like that creeping burglar," Smaug said, his own voice rolling over her. Morwinyon saw Fili and Kili burst from a pile of wooden wreckage and stumble to a halt, shuddering, and Tauriel shook her head tightly, bow still lined up for a shot. "Won't you come into the light? If my eyes confirm what my nose smells, I will have a treat – I have not tasted Noldor in an age."

"Would you not hear my purpose first?" she asked, instead of pointing out that eating her was not sufficient argument for her to show herself. "I assure you it is not burglary."

He leapt and landed, far too close for comfort. Could he pinpoint her voice so narrowly?

"The light, elfling," he said, too amused as he was too close. "If we speak in riddles I would see you."

Morwinyon grimaced, but to ignore him was to leave him to turn back to Tauriel, or perhaps step on Fili, so she stepped forward anyway.

"Aaaah," Smaug breathed. "Not just _any_ Noldo, then."

She ignored that. "I speak no riddles, Smaug the Golden. I have little use for them."

"Little is not none," he said. "What is your name, little Noldo girl?"

She glanced briefly aside. Sigrid and Tilda had hauled themselves from the water and crept slowly down the dock. Tauriel waited for her chance on her rooftop, bow unwavering. Bard was the same, though of Bain she saw no sign. Fili handed Kili some of his arrows.

"My name is Mirwen Thranduilien," she said finally.

"Treasure," the dragon mused, claws flexing and piercing support beams like so much paper. The building Morwinyon stood on shuddered, but did not fall. "How appropriate. So then, little jewel. What is your purpose, if not burglary?"

"We pursue the dwarves, for they have trespassed against my father-"

"I can smell lies, Mirwen Thranduilien," Smaug interrupted. "The day Thranduil Elf-King sends his youngest into my clutches… Well. He is too afraid to face me without his wife. I doubt he sends you now."

"My father did not send me," she admitted. "We thought you sleeping-"

"The truth, treasure-girl, or I have an appetizer with my dinner."

Morwinyon sighed. "We did pursue the orcs. But I – I came for you."

Smaug laughed. Her bones shivered with the sound: her teeth ached. "Your father named you poorly. Surely there is an elvish equivalent of fool."

He snaked around her, keeping his weight from falling entirely on the weathered wood. One huge eye regarded her. "Perhaps there is. So? What is your name."

"My father named me Mirwen," she said staunchly.

Smaug eyed her. She tried to make her fingers move, to make her arms raise, her elbows bend to draw the bow or at least not let the arrow dangle uselessly, but she could not.

"You amuse me," he said. "Shall I keep you, when I am done with the rest? Another jewel for my collection. I did not know I missed conversation until I had it again, and you, at least, are not here to make off with my valuables."

"I will not be kept," she retorted, a little too strongly.

The dragon cocked his head. "Won't you? I could still eat you, if you prefer."

Morwinyon could not quite summon up the wherewithal to glare, though she was vaguely aware that she wanted to.

"You _would_ ," Smaug chortled. "How marvelous."

She blinked at him.

He snorted, one wing flicking dismissively. It knocked over a weathervane. "Your name, elfling. The name you use, not any more fobbing off with what your father calls you."

Morwinyon did not want to tell him - and she did. Her dragon wanted to know her. In the face of that, she was powerless. "I am Morwinyon," she said.

He huffed a gust of air, not quite a laugh. Morwinyon did not flinch.

"How high your parents reached, glint-in-the-dark," he murmured, the whisper of a snake making its slow way over a hot rock. "How hard you try to live up to it."

She reached out, half-hypnotized, to run a hand over the glittering scales of his eye-ridge, letting her bowstring loosen so she held her arrow against the stave with one hand. Blood smeared after the hand touching Smaug, and only then did she feel the sting: the edges of his scales were whisper thin and sharp. She pulled her hand back and blinked at the cuts.

"You are not your mother, little girl," Smaug told her gently as the watched the blood well up in the hollow of her palm. "You are not your father, or your brother."

There was something freeing about hearing him say it, and it made sense that her dragon would know her better than most, did it not?

"You reach too high - and remember, elfling. Even stars can die."

 _Too high_ , the words echoed, across water and fire and up into the night. _You reach too high._

Her dragon did not know her after all.

"I am not my mother," she agreed, feeling through the cracks of fascination, letting her bloody hand fall.

"No legendary weapon," Smaug said, as if commiserating. "No killer sword, and you are no killer queen."

"No," she said, flexing her uninjured fingers on her bow, bloody ones going back to the string. "I have no Delu, and I am not a queen."

Smaug did not have time to move when she raised her bow, lulled into complacency by her initial enthrallment.

She did not need a legendary weapon. She only needed to remember Sigrid's arrow, and how Smaug had flinched. Her own arrow seemed almost to bury itself in Smaug's eye, where it sank to the fletching.

"I am not a star, either," she said in the brief, frozen moment of his disbelief.

Then he roared, fire glowing once more in his throat, and the only way out she could think of was forward. Morwinyon ran for the dragon.

* * *

A note from the author, in case nobody feels like looking it up: Morwinyon is the (Quenya) elvish name for Arcturus. It is the only star (or one of the only) that didn't move from east to west in ancient elvish myth, but was put in the west originally by Varda, albeit kind of accidentally. Morwinyon's parents are kind of pretentious, but you probably figured that out already.


	7. Chapter 7

The flames missed Morwinyon by a breath, the rush of heat that came with them making her cough and choke, but she made it to safe haven under him. She actually ran into his leg, left shoulder bruising painfully, slow, dripping cuts across her cheek. Her ear stung more than her palm had.

"You _dare_ ," Smaug thundered, one great clawed foot reaching up as if to pluck the bolt from his eye. He shouted again when he realized his claws were too large to grab it.

Fíli appeared beside Morwinyon as if by magic, Kíli a step behind.

"That was terrifying," Kíli said. "Were you terrified? I was terrified."

Morwinyon smiled absently and refused to reach up and check her ear.

"Do you have a plan?" Fíli asked. He eyed the left side of her face worriedly.

"They are only cuts," she assured him. "And truly? I just wanted to shoot him."

Fíli snorted as Smaug's feet began to rise.

"I need a sword," Morwinyon said, something like a plan forming in her mind. "Also, in case I die in this particular endeavor, I would like you to know that I am more fond of you than I should be, given the givens."

"That's fair," Fíli said, handing over one of the swords the men of Laketown had given him. It was short, but it was longer than Morwinyon's knives. "I'm a little more fond of you than I should be, too."

"I apologize in advance." She slid the sword behind her quiver, hoped briefly that it would not slip and impale her, and leapt, using Fíli's shoulder as a springboard so she could grab hold of Smaug's claws.

From below she heard Kíli say, in deeply wounded tones, "And you made fun of me!"

Fíli's reply, if he gave one, was lost as she slipped and grabbed at Smaug's scaly feet, where she hung, hands protesting and blood dripping slowly into her sleeves.

"Right," she said grimly, and hauled herself up so she crouched on his foot, now held close to his chest as he flew. Her boots protected her feet, and much of her clothing and armor was too tough to allow the same kind of damage to her body that her hands still suffered, but now she was afraid she would slip. Her quiver no longer produced the particular shifting sound of wood and feathers moving against each other, which meant she had probably lost her arrows in her acrobatics. She had dropped her bow, anyway.

Morwinyon was effectively riding a murderous dragon, and all she had was a sword of men, her scouting knives, and the smaller boot knife Tauriel had given her when Morwinyon turned thirty. She had confidence in the knives in normal circumstances, but dragonslaying was not a normal circumstance, and her arrows had, after all, done more damage than anyone else's.

She grit her teeth and drew her knives anyway, beginning the long climb up Smaug's shoulder. The knives wedged handily under the edges of his scales, and her boots had enough traction and tough enough soles: she made steady if slow progress, though she winced every time she pulled a knife out. Not only were they bloodless (his scales were too large, or the skin underneath too thick, for her to do any damage here. She was not sure Smaug even knew she was climbing him), but the scales chipped them and dulled the edges. By the time she reached the dragon's back they were damaged irreparably, and even the points were rounded and dull.

"You were probably too small to help me anyway," she told them a little sadly. Their first real battle, and already they were used up. She slid them into their sheaths anyway and rested for a moment on the dragon's back, one bloody hand holding tight to a blessedly smooth spike.

She saw burning buildings and their fleeing inhabitants and their reflections in the lakewater, rippling as if the lake shuddered at its people's pain. Tauriel and Bard continued to fire on Smaug, who was less amused but still contemptuous of their efforts. He refused to fly higher or away: instead he hovered, allowing Morwinyon the view. I was terrible.

It was beautiful too, for past the town rose the Lonely Mountain, crowned by stars and darkness, and to the west, when she turned, was her own star, unmoving and immutable.

She heard someone shout – Fíli. Her dragon was still wreaking havoc, and she sat and stared.

"Right," she said, as she had before, and rose shakily to her feet. Smaug did very little to impede her progress as she made her slow way towards his head. Every once and a while there was a jolt when he reached out to swipe or flame, but Morwinyon held onto the spikes along his neck and rode them out, shoving worry for Tauriel and Fíli and even Legolas, wherever he was, our of her head. She could not afford distractions now, as she crawled along the neck of a dragon.

Then Smaug laughed again and landed with a horrific jolt larger than the others. She slipped and swore, grabbing at the smaller, more angular spikes around the join of his head and neck, left ear banging into the edge of one. The insistent niggling pain from before exploded into fire along the upper edge and she hissed. Smaug lowered his head, making her slide again, legs banging painfully against more spikes.

"Bard the Bowman," Smaug drawled. "You had better pick a different name – that one doesn't suit."

Morwinyon looked down. Bard stood, bow broken and out of arrows, glaring at the dragon.

"My one weakness hardly applies if you cannot reach it," Smaug continued. "Step closer – I am not at all sure you and your mewling brats will be delicious, but you will at least be satisfying."

He was crouched, breastbone covered by his scaly head, vulnerable under-jaw in between. It left only one spot.

Morwinyon took a deep breath and, drawing Fíli's sword, leapt the las of the spines, stagger-sliding the remaining distance to Smaug's last good eye, using her momentum to drive the sword down and through.

The sword was much larger than her arrow had been. The eye burst, fluid splattering, and she kept going, shoving until she felt the sword scrape and stick in bone.

Smaug threw back his head and _screamed_. She braced herself against his eye ridge, holding onto the sword for dear life as gravity tried to snatch her back to earth and blood flowed from Smaug's now-empty eye socket, rolling down the blade and onto her hands and arms, splattering her face. She wanted to scream herself as smoke rose from metal and leather-wrapped hilt alike and her skin _burned_ , clothing and armor that had protected her against dragonscales doing next to nothing in the face of his blood. She did not scream. She _would not_ scream. She had not screamed when she languished in Mirkwood, fading slowly from lack of use, and she refused to scream now even if she was dying faster, dragonblood on her hands and dragon wings taking her slowly farther into the air as Smaug tried at last to flee.

Something thunked, making Smaug shudder, and his cry of agony ceased abruptly. As they tumbled end over end, Morwinyon heard Tauriel shout her name.


	8. Chapter 8

Morwinyon wondered whether she could stay in the lake – the water was blessedly cold on her skin. She was aware that was not rational thinking, but she seemed to remember hitting something very hard and her mind was not letting her consider anything else.

So. The water was cool. Her skin was hot. Her face hurt. One of her arms ached deeply. There was something important that she was forgetting. Something pulled on her armor.

Something pulled – she struggled. The leather split, damaged irrevocably by Smaug's blood, and whatever was pulling on her lost its grip, but it had woken her up. She remembered that she had to breathe. She was grabbed again, by the arm this time. She yelped at the pressure on her aching arm and choked on water as she was dragged to the surface.

Morwinyon forgot everything she knew about swimming in her fight for breath. Someone thwacked her back and she coughed up a bit of water, but her flailing sent them under again. She was pushed up and someone else dragged her onto solid ground, where she wretched and vomited.

The world came back into focus on a rickety boat with Tauriel holding Morwinyon's hair away from her face

"You will live," Tauriel said briskly, but Morwinyon could feel her hands shaking.

"My dragon?" Morwinyon croaked.

"Does not live."

"Oh," Morwinyon said, pushing herself up with her relatively unpained arm so she sat on a bench. "Good. Everyone else?"

"Alive so far as we can tell," Fíli said. The boat rocked as he heaved himself into it, and Morwinyon realized he had been the one to dive in after her. "What part of 'nobody do anything stupid' did you miss?"

"What part of 'escort the dwarves and the children out' was incomprehensible?" Tauriel added.

"You cannot tell me not to do anything stupid and then do something stupid," Morwinyon told Fíli. "It is hypocritical at best. And I was following Bain!"

"You were following Bain into fire and ruin," Tauriel muttered. "Let me see that arm."

"Look at your _hands_ ," Fíli said, reaching for one and thinking better of it. "Did you have to climb him?"

"No one else had any ideas," Morwinyon muttered, though now that he mentioned it her hands stung awfully. She looked down at them and quickly looked back up again. She had not realized how many of her fingernails she had torn, or how deeply. Coupled with the cuts and burns, her hands were not a pretty sight. Her right arm did not seem to function properly.

"Broken," Tauriel said. "At least it seems to be a clean break, and it has not broken the skin."

"I have never broken my arm before," Morwinyon mused.

"I wish you joy of it," Tauriel said dryly. "I will wait to set it until we are on solid ground, if you can bear it."

Morwinyon shrugged and bit back another yelp.

"Is that the arm I grabbed her by?" Fíli asked, looking worried. "Did I-"

"I think saving her from drowning was more important than worrying about comparatively minor injuries," Tauriel said, cutting him off.

" _She_ is right here," Morwinyon said. "Thank you for the rescue, Fíli. I seem to have lost your sword."

"Bother the sword," he retorted.

Tauriel tossed him a paddle, and the two of them steered over to the wooden walkways. Most were burning merrily, but Kíli stood at the edge of one and leapt into the boat when it was close enough. It rocked, jostling Morwinyon's arm, and she winced. Now that everything was calming down, everything started to hurt abominably.

"Good job with the dragon," Kíli said.

"Do _not_ encourage her," Tauriel ordered.

"You were the one who was going to stand in one place and be flamed to give Bard three minutes more to escape," Morwinyon said. "Which he was not going to take anyway."

"You are all stupidly heroic," Fíli said from the front, digging his paddle into the water with more force than necessary as he and Tauriel paddled for the shore. "I should wash my hands of all of you."

"You didn't exactly stay in the boat," Kíli pointed out.

"And you dived in after me with a dragon in the water," Morwinyon added.

"The dragon was dead," he retorted, turning to glare at both of them. "It isn't the same thing."

Morwinyon smiled at him. Fíli's glare faltered.

"You are not allowed to make fun of me anymore," Kíli said. "Never again."

He tried to take the paddle from Tauriel, who ordered him to sit and rest and stop overexerting himself and then fussed at Morwinyon for trying to move closer to the front instead of resting herself.

* * *

Sigrid found them on the shore as Tauriel set Morwinyon's arm and wrapped it tightly, Fíli holding her in place. Tilda was with her, and watched in fascination as Tauriel cleaned the burns and cuts, smearing them with a salve and wrapping more bandages over the whole thing.

"I cannot move my fingers," Morwinyon complained when she was done, raising her unbroken arm to demonstrate. Tauriel had wrapped the bandages so Morwinyon effectively wore mittens.

"Good," Tauriel retorted as Tilda poked the knot of the sling keeping Morwinyon's arm against her chest. "Maybe if you cannot hold a weapon you will not get into trouble. That was some excellent shooting, Sigrid."

Sigrid nodded graciously, though she was looking around worriedly. "Have you seen Da or Bain?"

"Tauriel kept them from being roasted," Kíli said. "I assume they escaped – we didn't see them in town."

"Give me but a moment," Tauriel said, opening the salve again. "I will help you search."

"I can apply salve," Fíli said. "Unless there's some mystical elvish chanting involved. Help them find their father – I can't see over anyone's head here."

Tauriel hesitated, eying him, but in the end handed him the flask and took the human children by the shoulders.

Fíli applied the salve more gently than Tauriel had.

"I believe you have to rub it in," Morwinyon said as he smeared it carefully over her cheekbone. "Though I am not sure. She put so much of it on my arms that I do not think she _could_ have rubbed it in if she wanted to."

He snorted, but started making short circles with his thumbs. The salve was cool, but his hands were very warm, and the dual sensations confused her skin, which was already confused by the absence of the pain her body knew it should be feeling now. Tauriel usually mixed some pain relievers into her salves.

"Your ears are…" he trailed off and looked rueful. "Well, the left one doesn't look very pointed anymore."

She sighed. "My mother never lost a bit of ear."

He gave her a look.

"More than a bit?"

He nodded.

She sighed again. "And I had such nice ones."

He laughed, sounding surprised, which was the moment Legolas appeared directly behind him.

"I see nothing funny," Legolas said, tone low and furious.

"I am perfectly fine," Morwinyon offered when no one else said or did anything for a long moment.

"You are _not_ ," Fíli snapped as Legolas did the same. Legolas glared at Fíli. Fíli shot a glance at Morwinyon, raising his eyebrows.

She shrugged. Fíli passed the flask to Legolas, bowed to Morwinyon, and went to help Bofur with the boat.

Legolas crouched in front of her, turning her head so he could inspect her face from every angle. "What happened?"

Morwinyon shrugged again. "I blinded a dragon. Tauriel seems to think everything is in working order or soon will be."

Legolas let out a sharp sound of relief as he settled cross-legged in front of her to finish the salve job. At the rate new people kept taking over, it would take a year. "Tauriel is well?"

"Better than me, though she was nearly burned to a crisp performing heroics."

"Adar is going to kill all three of us," Legolas said. "Probably you should not make it worse by consorting with dwarves."

"If he is going to kill me, then I can hardly make it worse," she retorted. "Fíli saved my life, and we were having a perfectly nice conversation before you made everything uncomfortable."

Legolas blinked at her, and Morwinyon stared right back, refusing to look away.

In the end he did, for Tauriel returned without the Bowman children. "Bard lives, as does Bain," she told Morwinyon. "They were pleased to see each other. Did Fíli not finish?"

"Legolas sent him off," Morwinyon replied as her brother rose and hugged Tauriel. "Tell him to be reasonable."

"Your brother is rarely reasonable," Tauriel said, hugging Legolas back but releasing him sooner than he might have liked. "Did you find the last orc?"

"I did not catch him," Legolas said, turning back to finally finish putting the salve on Morwinyon's face and ears. "He disappeared into Gundabad. We need to follow and investigate."

Morwinyon perked up.

"No," Tauriel said without looking away from Legolas. Morwinyon deflated.

Legolas agreed. "You are right of course. Morwinyon must be cared for first."

"Keep those bandages on a full day," Tauriel instructed. "A full one, mind. And no removing the sling until you can move your fingers without pain, do you understand me?"

Morwinyon nodded sulkily, making Legolas smile. "You will not get away with anything with us here."

She was terribly afraid that was true. They were going to cart her back to Mirkwood. Her father might be impressed by the fight with Smaug, but she did not _want_ to go back yet. She wanted to see the mountain, and her father would not appreciate dwarven visitors, which meant she would not be able to speak to Fíli. She raked her brain for ideas.

"Legolas!" a familiar voice called, and all three elves turned to see Tundir pull his horse to a halt. "Legolas, your father orders your return."

"I suppose we could only get away with it for so long," Legolas sighed. "Tauriel, if you would help Morwinyon up, she can ride double with Tundir while we-"

"Might I speak to you?" Tundir asked, looking uncomfortable.

Legolas raised his eyebrows, gesturing between them.

Tundir looked at Tauriel.

"Anything you want to say you can say in front of Tauriel," Morwinyon snapped from the ground.

"Lady Mirwen!" Tundir exclaimed. "I did not see you there-"

"Did you think me a very tall human?" she asked.

"Speak, Tundir," Legolas ordered, but Tundir winced.

Tauriel laid a hand on Legolas' arm. "It is no trouble. I will wait by the shore."

Morwinyon opened her mouth to protest again, but Tauriel flicked her eyes in the direction of the dwarves and Morwinyon subsided. She had not thought Tauriel would need to be subtle about speaking with Kíli, but then, Legolas did not like _any_ of the dwarves. Tauriel left.

"Tauriel is no longer welcome," Tundir said, and took a step back at the expressions on both Prince's and Princess' face. "It is your father's will! I thought the news would come better from one of you."

"You did not even know I was here," Morwinyon retorted. "You could not have thought-"

"I will not return to a place Tauriel is not welcome," Legolas said simply.

Morwinyon nodded sharply, but Legolas looked at her. "You will, though, Morwinyon. Adar will worry, and you need tending. Go with Tundir."

"I do not want to go with Tundir," Morwinyon said. "I do not want to go where Tauriel cannot be."

"In this instance, Morwinyon, I do not care what you want," her brother said. "You are injured and you need care. Promise me you will go where you can get it."

His jaw was set when he looked at her, and she could not disagree, really. What else was she to do, sit and wait with the humans while he and Tauriel scouted Gundabad?

Her eyes fell on the dwarves, still readying the boat a little ways past where Tauriel and Kíli spoke.

"I promise," she agreed.


	9. Chapter 9

The more she thought about it, the more Morwinyon was convinced that fighting a dragon was not enough. She had not after all _killed_ the dragon – that had been Bard – and she had been relatively badly injured, though between Tauriel's care and her own fea she should be able to use her arm almost as well as before in a day or two. Tauriel and Legolas were treating her no differently than they always had, and she saw no reason that Thranduil would either. She needed something bigger.

The problem, of course, was that there were very few actions available to her that were bigger than blinding a dragon. Going back to Mirkwood was certainly not one of them, and anyway she had no plans to travel with Tundir. Going with the dwarves was already a foregone conclusion: it was the only solution that did not result in Tundir's company or lecturing, for if she stayed with the humans he would too until she was so tired of his words that she would return to Mirkwood just to be rid of him.

Also, Fili was going with the dwarves for obvious reasons.

Morwinyon began to plot, keeping an eye on the dwarves to ensure they did not leave before Legolas and Tauriel, who would notice her absence too soon. She waited while Tundir protested Legolas' departure. She waited while Legolas and Tauriel rode off, waving her wrapped hands and feeling a little ridiculous. She did not wait while Tundir spoke with Bard.

"You would not have room for one more, would you?" she asked the dwarves.

Bofur sighed, and Oin glared at her wrapped hands as if the injuries personally offended him.

She held up her unbroken arm. A bottle of heal-all salve dangled from her wrist. It was less elegant than simply holding the strap, but she could not bend her fingers thanks to the bandages. "I do not know if this can be replicated by anyone other than an elf, but even if it cannot I have another flask."

"You want us to steal away an elvish princess for two flasks of salve that may or may not work for dwarvish healers?" Fili asked, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"If it does not work for dwarvish healers, then you will need that elvish princess," Morwinyon said innocently.

Kili snickered, looking as if he did it in spite of himself.

"Thorin is not going to be pleased," Oin grumbled, but his eyes followed the flask as it swayed.

"Thorin isn't going to be pleased no matter what we do," Fili pointed out. "Also, technically I outrank everyone here."

"Do you, lad?" Oin asked dryly.

"I said _technically_ ," Fili said. "You can all blame me and call it a day."

"You can blame me too," Kili said. "I mean, if you need to."

Morwinyon smiled at both brothers. Kili ducked his head as if abashed, but Fili smiled back.

They all looked at Oin, who still eyed the flask.

"Get in," he said finally.

Morwinyon obliged.

* * *

Nearly an hour later, no one had spoken aside from occasional course corrections. Rowing precluded signing, too, which left room only for thought. "What will your escort do?" Fili asked.

Morwinyon looked up. She had been staring into the water; Fili wondered if she was searching for the dragon's corpse. "My what?"

"Tundir."

"Oh, him," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I expect he will call for Lady Mirwen for an hour and report back to his Lieutenant that Tauriel led me into mischief."

"Will Tauriel be in trouble?" Kili asked, abruptly interested.

She shook her head. "The odds of someone believing Tundir over Tauriel are slim at best. If he were not such a good marksman the scouts might have thrown him out entirely – well, no. Tauriel is too fair for that."

"Why does he call you Mirwen? Is it a nickname or-" The curl of Morwinyon's lip cut Fili off more effectively than anything else would have.

"Tundir calls me Mirwen because he has decided it is improper to call me by the name my mother gave me," she said. "Why he thinks it is more proper to call me by a name I do not care for is a mystery."

"It isn't that different from Morwinyon," Kili said.

"It means _treasure_ ," she replied, lip still curled.

Kili shrugged, though Fili remembered some of her conversation with Smaug and began to understand.

"Perhaps he means it as a compliment," Kili offered.

"I do not care if he does," Morwinyon retorted.

"I don't think I like him much anyway," Fili said, and from the front he heard Bofur snicker. When Fili shot a glare at the older dwarf, Bofur looked studiously towards the mountain, though Oin met Fili's eyes with his own narrowed ones and shook his head at him.

Morwinyon shifted so her knee bumped against his, so he ignored his elders.


	10. Chapter 10

"Should you be doing that?" Fíli asked that night as they camped by the lakeside. Morwinyon had moved away from the fire. Though her burns had healed completely – and so she would swear on anything anyone asked her to swear on, no matter that the heat from the fire still burned – she could see the stars better from here, sitting under a tree uninfested with spiderwebs and unblighted by darkness. Also, it made seeing what she was trying to do more difficult.

Unless, of course, her dwarf came seeking her.

Morwinyon shrugged mostly without pain as she continued trying to unwrap her bandages. Aside from an ignorable dull ache the arm felt fine, and she was tired of not having the use of her fingers: she was using her teeth to pull at the wrappings. It was undignified.

"Would you like help?"

"I can manage," she muttered around the edge of bandage clamped between her teeth, though her progress could charitably be called slow.

"I'm sure you can," he agreed. "That's why I asked if you'd like help instead of asking if you needed it."

With a sigh, she held out her arm. He sat and took her hand into his lap, carefully working free the knots and tucked edges Tauriel had used to make sure Morwinyon could not do exactly what she had been trying to do.

After a moment or three of fumbling with the knots, Fíli echoed her sigh. "These might have to be cut, though I don't have anything but the damn sword. Maybe Oin has something. How did she tie them so tightly?"

"Spite," Morwinyon grumbled, and sighed again. "I jest. She meant only to make sure I kept them on as long as she thought I should. There is a small knife in my left boot."

"Should you keep them on longer?" he inquired even as he reached for the knife. She obligingly stretched out her leg.

"No," she said. He did not reply as he began carefully cutting the knots out. "Sometimes Tauriel forgets how quickly I heal."

Fíli snorted. "And how quickly is that, Princess?"

She wriggled her fingers at him as he freed them from their cloth prison. "These _were_ broken earlier."

He caught them, feeling over them carefully before unwrapping the rest of her arm, making her flex and move the arm in every direction and asking about pain.

"None," she said peevishly, and winced when her elbow and wrist popped with loud cracks. "That does not count."

"Of course not," he replied very dryly as he started unwrapping her other arm. "You're going to scar."

"Definitely," she agreed with some satisfaction, inspecting her right arm. The burns from the dragon blood had not responded quite as quickly as her broken bones had to the salve or her natural quick healing. Quicker than most elves, even, though her mother had been quicker to heal as she had been quicker in almost everything, but quick healing did not mean scarless healing. Her mother had had many scars. Morwinyin vividly remembered tracing some of them with small fingers, each a reminder that Laeriel had lived through ages and would continue to do so. Only, apparently, she had not.

Morwinyon planned to live through _everything_. Maybe that was what she inherited from her father.

That and an appreciation for aesthetics, she admitted to herself as she watched firelight flicker in Fíli's hair. She pitied Smaug all of a sudden: he had guarded his stolen horde so jealously, and all of it would only be outshone by a dwarf who could rightfully claim it.

"You really do have pretty hair," she told Fíli.

"So you've said," he replied, looking up at her. "Is this an elvish thing?"

"Maybe," she said instead of, _definitely, yes, sorry my cultural upbringing involved odes to the beauty of hair and eyes, of which you also possess a nice pair, by the way_. "We do not have beards, though."

He cocked his head, thumb running absently over the back of her now-unbandaged left hand. "You don't think I have a pretty beard?"

She could not help it. She laughed. "Of all the beards I have seen, yours is without a doubt the prettiest," she assured him.

"I would return the compliment," he said, "but you don't have a beard. It's a little off-putting, you know. You'll have to settle for having the prettiest unbearded face I've seen."

"You could compliment my hair," she pointed out. "I have rather nice hair."

"You have beautiful hair. Oin nearly squints his eyes out of his head when he sees it, though – it's not entirely decent."

"Is that why he glares at me?" Morwinyon asked, feeling cheered. "I thought he did not like me. I am not sure what is _not entirely decent_ about my hair, though."

Fíli, wincing, said, "Well, he might not like you much, either, but most of the dwarves who grew up in Erebor are stricter about propriety. Our generation – Kíli's and mine – doesn't care as much. You can see how he does _his_ hair."

Morwinyon laughed again. "Are you saying I am-" she took a moment to remember the appropriate term from a book she had found lying in Inwiel's office once. "Are you saying I am a shameless hussy?"

"Nooo," he said, drawing it out. "I'm saying Oin might think so. Because he's old and stubborn."

"I suppose I must avoid accidentally offending old and stubborn dwarves," Morwinyon mused.

"Or don't," Fíli said, shrugging. "Thorin won't care about your hair."

Something in his tone caught her attention. "Just about my elvishness."

Fíli shrugged. "Thorin isn't fond of your father. On a personal level. I don't think."

"If you knew how few people were fond of my father on a personal level, you would not be quite so hesitant to tell me about it," Morwinyon told him, though that was not entirely true if she thought about it. Even Tauriel talked about Thranduil with an annoyed sort of fondness, even when he did something that would have made Morwinyon furious. But then, Thranduil had always been fond of Tauriel too – even when he was at his most autocratic with her. It occurred to Morwinyon that she did not have as large a pool of reactions to draw on in regards to her father as she had thought.

"If it helps, your father's hair is even more scandalous than yours."

"It helps a great deal, though I am almost certain he would take it as a point of pride."

Fíli finally put down her hand and stood to collect the bandages. "I'll bring you some food and tea, if you can't sit beside the fire comfortably."

"Who said I could not?" she asked, kicking one foot idly and testing her arms by leaning back on her elbows. They were in the edges of the forest, so the ground was loamy without being full of pinecones or acorns or other pods to irritate her _completely and totally_ healed arms. "Perhaps I only need help with my hair."

"I'm sure that is the entire reason," Fíli agreed solemnly. "Me helping you with your hair won't get you into Oin's good graces, though, and it _is_ something taken seriously by my generation."

Morwinyon let herself fall to the ground with a thump. "Food would be appreciated."

"Leaves and tangles won't help either," Fíli called over his shoulder as he went back to the others.

"Why do I like him?" Morwinyon asked the stars she could see through the canopy. "I suppose because he is charming. And he _did_ save me from drowning. And talks to me like I am a capable adult. And helped with my bandages. And helped fight Smaug. And is getting me food. Other than that I cannot imagine."

A snicker came from her left.

"It cannot be because of his family," she continued to the stars. "The little brother is reckless and rash and an eavesdropper and apparently a shameless hussy, too."

Kíli flopped to the ground beside her. "But the little brother is so good looking," he protested. "Not to mention charming and sweet and brave."

"If you would like me to carry word of your virtues to Tauriel, I am afraid I can say only 'fights dragons' and 'occasionally jests'."

"Now you're just being mean," he said comfortably. "But as I am the bigger person-"

She snorted.

"- and as those aren't terrible virtues to have, I will offer to help you with your hair. I care even less for tradition than my brother."

Morwinyon turned her head to look at him. Kíli _had_ come after her and Bain, which meant he cared, and he _had_ helped with Smaug, which meant he was brave, and he _did_ like Tauriel, which meant he had some measure of good judgment.

"I suppose I must be honest with you," she said. "I asked for help with my hair from exactly who I wanted help from."

"Yes, and when I make a complete mess of it he won't be able to help himself. You have an older brother. You know how it is."

"I will have to take your word for it," she said slowly. Legolas was so much older than she was. He had always been good at letting her make what mistakes her father allowed her to make.

"Sit up," Kíli ordered. "I have a comb."

She obeyed.

When Fíli returned, he found Morwinyon feeling around her new hairstyle, which even she could tell was lopsided and already straggling free, and Kíli sitting behind her on a log.

"I take it your hair choices are not so much the statement of a revolutionary as a product of complete lack of skill," she said.

"Shh," Kíli replied. "It's a secret."

Fíli sighed, and Morwinyon looked at him.

"I told you I needed help with my hair," she said. "Admittedly I appear to have accepted a poor offer."

"Just move," Fíli ordered his brother, setting down plate and cup beside Morwinyon. "You did this on purpose."

"Someone had to flirt for you," Kíli said, unperturbed as he handed the comb over at Fíli's imperious gesture.

"Who will flirt for _you_?" Fíli asked dangerously as he took his brother's seat on the log, trying and failing to untangle the mass of braids at the back of Morwinyon's neck. "Since you trip over your own feet whenever you so much as see a flash of red hair lately? Seeing Gloin will be awkward. What did you _do_?"

"I braided," Kíli replied haughtily. "And Morwinyon has graciously agreed to pass on compliments."

"When did that happen?" Morwinyon asked. "I only told you the ones I could pass on."

"Oh, come on-"

"Go away before I do something awful," Fíli interrupted. "This is a mess, and Oin will actually murder me if he comes to see what I am doing."

"He won't murder you," Kíli protested even as he left. "You're the good one!"

Fíli muttered under his breath as he did his best to fight out the tangles. After a while, Morwinyon asked, "Will he _actually_ murder you?"

"No, but he will tell Balin when we arrive, and I don't need a lecture on the responsibilities of my position and how being in compromising positions with people is the opposite of remembering them."

"I wanted you in this position," Morwinyon admitted. "But I do not want you in trouble."

"I make it sound more dire than it is," Fíli assured her. "Balin is a master of the disappointed face, but he probably wouldn't tell Thorin."

"Oh. Good."

"This isn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be," Fíli remarked after a short time. Morwinyon tilted her head back to look up at him incredulously. "Oh, no, the braids were awful and somehow he managed to tie one around your ear, but I mean your hair is coming untangled much more easily than mine did the few times I let Kíli experiment on me."

"Oh," she said, looking back towards the lake. She could not even see the fire. Fíli had abandoned the comb early on, and now he carded his fingers through her hair in search of more tangles, brushing against her injured ear. It did not hurt.

"You really do have beautiful hair," he said, clearing his throat. "Since we're past all limits of propriety now anyway."

"I comes from my mother's side," Morwinyon said. For some reason she could think of nothing else to say. "I mean, obviously. You have seen my father."

"I haven't, actually," Fíli said. "Thorin mentioned his hair in one of many imprisoned rants."

"Oh. Well. It is gold. Not like yours, it is… my mother called it morning sunlight."

"Your mother was a poet?"

Morwinyon shrugged helplessly. How to explain that most elves were poets, one way or another? Laeriel's writing, what Morwinyon had seen of it in letters locked away in Thranduil's desk drawer or Legolas' keepsake box, was more lyrical than most because she had raised speaking Quenya, which was practically speaking in poetry anyway. "My mother was larger than life in nearly everything. It makes sense that her endearments would be, too."

Fíli 'hmm'ed, working on a tiny braid above her ear. "Did she have one for you?"

"Morwinyon was her endearment," she said. "The name she gave me. She never called me anything else – Glint-in-the-dark, the western star, the one we elves can follow home."

He stopped braiding. His breathing changed a little.

"So, yes," she said into the silence. "I suppose she did give me a larger than life endearment."

"A lot to live up to," he said. "Are they ever difficult, those expectations?"

Morwinyon did not shake her head, but only because Fíli had resumed braiding. "Only if no one lets me try."

He stopped again, but for a much shorter time. "I wouldn't try to stop you."

She smiled wider than she remembered ever doing, because she did not doubt him. "I know."

"Morwinyon-"

"Elves believe that sometimes people just fit," she said quickly, trying to get the words out. "Like – not like something broken, we are whole by ourselves. Not like a puzzle, it is not _difficult_ , but…"

He waited, tying off the small braid with a tie and moving to make a larger one.

"Sometimes you know that someone fits in your life," she said finally. "Like Tauriel does. Like Legolas. You and I, we fit."

"I fit in your life like your brother?" he teased, finishing the big braid off faster.

She tilted her head back to look up at him. "Not even remotely."

He met her eyes for one long, never-ending moment before looking away, and though she was effectively looking at him upside-down it did not feel ridiculous. "I am glad for that," he said.

"But?"

"You will live a great deal longer than I will-"

"Beren and Luthien," she said. "You will live longer than he did, anyway."

Surprised, he laughed. "All right. Objection withdrawn."

"Are there others?" she asked. "I do not want – I want you to want me like I want you, but elves fall in love very quickly as a rule, and I do not know-"

"No other objections," he said. "Well. My family will probably have objections, but as it's actually illegal for them to do more than complain about my choice of spouse…"

Morwinyon turned around and kissed him. He was at a very convenient height on the log, and she was trying to figure out the logistics of a near two-foot height difference even as his hands, still caught in her hair, came up to cradle her face as if on instinct.

It was just as well they had the comb: both sets of braids had to be redone by morning.


	11. Chapter 11

Oin said nothing when they crept back into camp, but he said nothing pointedly. Morwinyon ignored him, slinging her pack on her back and helping Bofur load the boat as Kíli covered any trace of their camp.

"I don't know what to say," Bofur told her as he passed her the cooking gear.

She stowed it in the bow. "You could say 'congratulations'. Marriages are supposed to be good things."

"Maybe if I knew you better, I'd be better pleased," Bofur replied, hoisting the last of everyone's bags into the boat. "As it is, I only know it'll bring trouble for you _and_ Fíli."

"Your king can hardly be an ogre," she said, crossing her arms. "Fíli loves him dearly, anyway, and I will love him for Fíli's sake."

"I'll remember you said that," Bofur said. "At least your hair is up. Oin will stop complaining to me about it."

Morwinyon blushed and glanced at Fíli from the corner of her eye, reaching up to finger the braid behind her right ear.

"You could have given the lad something other than a leather tie for his marriage braid," Bofur said, teasing note back in his voice. "You being a princess and all."

"A princess who did not expect to marry a dwarf," she retorted, dropping the braid, which was fastened with one of Fíli's clasps. "No one told me I needed anything fancy."

Bofur shrugged.

"I will find something later," she muttered.

"Good luck with that."

That occupied her for her first shift of paddling, but by the second she had returned to wondering how to prove herself. Fíli had not seemed disappointed, after all.

When they pulled up to the shore she still had no answer, but as she stumbled getting out of the boat Oin, who did not like her, caught her and helped her steady herself. About to snap that she could handle it, she stopped.

"Thank you," she said instead. He nodded gruffly and strode ahead.

If Oin helped her with so small a thing as that, without being asked, without liking her…

Morwinyon smiled. What greater task could there be than friendship with the dwarves?

* * *

It should not be _too_ difficult, she reflected, staring up at the statues flanking the destroyed entrance to Erebor. Her own relative on her mother's side had managed it, and if it had not lasted after Finrod's death, well. Morwinyon would simply have to be better at the whole friendship business.

She had _married_ a dwarf, after all, and a prince to boot. It was not as if they could simply dismiss her, surely. Succeed here, and maybe they would send her to her father as a sort of ambassador. He would _have_ to respect her then, and probably apologize to Fíli for the whole unpleasant imprisonment episode.

Morwinyon had been telling herself all of that on the long walk from Dale, over and over, but a specific plan had eluded her. Make nice was definitely a step. How nice did she have to make? Be clever. She liked to think she had that handled. Try not to offend anyone accidentally. For that she would need more time with Fíli.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a very small person scrambling over the rocks to greet them.

"Thank goodness you're here," the person said in a voice that managed to be fussy and relieved at the same time. "There is something very odd going on with Thorin, and – why do you have an elf with you?"

"It's a long story," Bofur said.

"Fíli got married!" Kíli put in.

"I feel like that leaves out several relevant details," Bofur complained. "The dragon, for one."

"He's not still out and about, is he?" The newcomer wrung his hands. "We didn't mean to wake him, obviously, but it turns out he was already awake and more _lurking_ if you catch my drift, and then he flew off-"

"Oh, he's dead now," Kíli said. "Bard killed him."

"Morwinyon blinded him first," Fíli pointed out. "And that sword went deep, he might have already been dead when Bard shot him."

"I can say with utmost certainty that he was alive when Bard shot him," Morwinyon said. "Unfortunately."

"Erm," their friend, who was definitely not a dwarf, said. "Yes. Well. Glad that's taken care of."

"I am sure I _could_ have killed him," Morwinyon said to make Fíli feel better, though she was not actually sure. It was probably true, anyway.

"Yes," he said again. "Well. Pleased to make your acquaintance…"

"Morwinyon."

"Morwinyon. Well. Madam. I don't mean to be rude, but, well. Thorin is-"

"Thorin isn't hurt?" Fíli demanded.

"No, no, not exactly, but probably bringing an elf into the mountain isn't the best course of action at the moment, Thorin is a bit… erm."

"I am sure Thorin Oakenshield will be pleased to meet his niece no matter her race," Morwinyon said, trying to sound as regal as possible and ignoring the shuffling feet of every dwarf present.

"I'm not," Oin muttered.

"Thorin'll have to, though," Kíli said staunchly, standing to Morwinyon's side as if they were entering into battle. "Morwinyon is Fíli's wife. And maybe it'll open Thorin's mind to…"

"Oh for heaven's sake," Bofur said. "Bilbo, you should have left him in the cells. Sounds like he'd have been happier."

"I will be on my best behavior," Morwinyon promised everyone concerned. Fíli squeezed her hand.

Bilbo shuffled his feet. "In the normal way of things, I'm sure Thorin would be perfectly civil-"

"I'm not," Oin said again.

"-but we are not in the normal way of things, not one bit, and Thorin-"

But Fíli's head snapped up as if he had heard something. Morwinyon stopped paying attention to Bilbo in favor of trying to hear what he seemed intent on – a whisper, maybe, at the heart of the mountain. It crept out so that even she could feel it, ghosting over her ears and calling to something inside of her that she thought she had left in Mirkwood amongst the shadows and darkness and spiders. The other dwarves' heads rose too. Fíli, still holding her hand, strode past Bilbo. She followed. Was this the song of the mountain? Was this what had called the dwarves home?

Elrond had said once, when he stayed in Mirkwood while his children rode in search of Morwinyon's mother, that something festered in the heart of the forest, and Morwinyon had not known what he meant. Mirkwood had always been Mirkwood to her, always felt the same way: she had never known anything different. Was this what Elrond had felt like in her forest, as if something rotten and twisted crept inside of him and told him _this place is not for you_?

She was not Elrond, Morwinyon told herself as she followed her husband. Elrond was a child of gentle rivers and quiet forests, of healing houses and tamed places. Morwinyon was born of a wild place, of riotous greenery and reckless growth. The mountain held no fears for her: she would not be driven off by stone or earth or darkness.

I was born underground, she thought at the whispers as Fíli pulled her along. I was born amongst the roots and rocks of a forest that held no love for me or mine, and I have fought a dragon. You do not scare me. The feeling did not lessen, but it did not get any worse either. Morwinyon took it as tacit acceptance of her presence.

As they came into view of the treasure horde she stopped. Fíli let go of her with a brief glance back, but she either looked well enough or he decided it would be better to introduce her later, because it was not the treasure that had halted her.

Thorin Oakenshield brooded over the gold, hair a vivid splash of black against a seemingly never-ending sea of gold and jewels. Morwinyon could see immediately why Smaug might have been enamored of keeping her: Thorin's coloring was not so different from her own, and the contrast made the entire picture more beautiful.

Morwinyon had been right earlier though – Fíli's hair was definitely prettier.

Kíli crowded past, followed by Bofur and Oin. Bilbo halted beside her.

"Something isn't right here," he said. It was almost a murmur, and she doubted anyone else heard it.

"Perhaps the mountain is like Mirkwood," Morwinyon said. "Perhaps there are those suited to it, and those not."

"Are you suited?" he asked more than a little warily.

Fíli beckoned to her as Thorin frowned up at him.

"I am not _not_ suited," she replied. As Bilbo grimaced a little, she stepped forward to stand beside her husband.

Thorin's eyes narrowed immediately. Morwinyon met them, as she had met Smaug's – she had not been intimidated by a dragon, and she would not be intimidated by Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain or not.

"Thorin," Fíli said, taking Morwinyon's hand. "I would like to introduce you to my wife."


	12. Chapter 12

"What," Thorin said. The flat tone echoed from the gold and the stone.

"Fíli and I are married," Morwinyon said, though she did not think Fíli had been unclear. "I am Morwinyon."

"What," Thorin said again, though this time the tone was less flat.

"Thorin," Bofur began.

Thorin rounded on him. "I suppose if I cannot depend on you to make it to a boat on time I cannot depend on you to watch my nephew, but I thought Oin, at least, would know his duties!"

"You can't blame Bofur or Oin, Thorin. They have no choice in who I marry." Fíli clutched her hand hard, setting himself as if for an attack.

"Your people have been very kind," Morwinyon said. She stepped forward so she was slightly ahead of Fíli. She did not like that he looked nervous, and aside from that she refused to be left out of the conversation. If she let it happen now it would continue to happen; she did not think she could abide being ignored again. "I am glad to know them, and pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty."

She bowed, just a little. Legolas only ever bowed to their father on the most formal of occasions, and Morwinyon had never had occasion to, so it was a little awkward. When she straightened, Thorin was glaring at her directly.

"You have no need to voice platitudes, elf," he said. "You have no need to voice anything in my halls."

Morwinyon blinked. She had never in her life been told to shut up in nearly so many words. She had not chosen to speak to people often, but when she had they had always listened.

The dwarves ho had accompanied her shifted slightly. When she glanced back at them they had their eyes on their feet, even Kíli. Fíli's mouth had set in a thin line, but he squeezed her hand once, reassuring.

"She has the right to speak, Uncle," her husband said, soft and a little hesitant but clear enough.

Morwinyon wanted to snap that she had _every_ right – she had never cared for her royal privilege before, but she found herself resenting its absence now, when it was being ignored.

"Does she?" Thorin retorted.

Kíli jumped in before anyone else could. "They are married, Uncle. Doesn't your niece have the right to speak in your halls?"

Thorin snarled something in Khuzdul. Morwinyon did not know what it was exactly, but she had the feeling it was unpleasant. The silence that followed was so absolute Morwinyon thought she could hear distant clinks, as if gold piles shifted.

Kíli looked shocked to be spoken to that way by his uncle, and Thorin looked no less shocked to have spoken that way to his nephew.

Kíli had been friendly to her, and he was important to Tauriel. Morwinyon reached out hesitantly with her free hand to place it gently on his shoulder, trying to look concerned when he met her eyes. She must have succeeded because he reached up to pat her hand with his own.

"Just so," she said, turning back to Thorin, whose eyes had followed her hand when it went to Kíli's shoulder. Thorin's mouth was set the same way Fíli's was. "And as your niece, it can be agreed that I have some stake in the fate of-"

"You have no stake," Thorin spat. "You have no say, and no right. I cannot separate you from my nephew, but I refuse your standing, and whatever elvish wiles you used-"

"Wiles?" she demanded, stung out of attempted politeness. "What wiles-"

" _Be silent_."

If she had not been holding on to Fíli and Kíli, she might have leaped down and hit him. Maybe she could hit him tomorrow, she thought savagely, but for now she seethed.

"You insult my wife, Uncle," Fíli said.

"You married an elf, _Nephew_ ," Thorin retorted. "Get used to it."

"The elf is right here," Morwinyon said through gritted teeth, but Thorin ignored her.

"Get her out of my sight."

Morwinyon might have stayed and argued at him until he was forced to acknowledge her, however bad an idea that might have been, but Fíli and Kíli dragged her back into the hall. Bilbo followed them.

"You see?" Bilbo asked.

"How _dare_ he," Morwinyon hissed. "I am a princess of Mirkwood, and I will not be treated as if-"

"Let's not give him that bit of information at the moment," Bofur said. Morwinyon looked back at him. He had followed them, and now looked nervously back himself, as if worried Thorin had heard them.

"I'll talk to him later," Kíli said.

Fíli wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her chest. "I'm sorry."

"Why would you need to apologize?" Morwinyon demanded, returning the embrace and lowering her head so she could bury her face in his hair. His head came up to slightly below her collarbone so it was a bit of an awkward stretch, but she did not care. She was also abruptly less angry – Fíli smelled sweaty, but so did she, and the smell was oddly comforting.

"Thorin isn't that bad," Fíli said. "Really. I don't know why…"

Bilbo, when Fíli trailed off, said, "He's been like this since we got here."

"He's not himself," a deeper voice said. Morwinyon looked up to see another dwarf looking at her and Fíli. His arms were crossed over his chest, displaying impressive muscles and making various bits of weaponry more obvious. "He doesn't like elves at the best of times – nor do I – but I've never seen him treat the lads like that."

Morwinyon tightened her arms around Fíli and glared at the speaker. She remembered him vaguely from Mirkwood; one of the dwarves who had looked up when she had seen them cross the bridge. He had been in the dungeon with the others, but she had not caught his name.

The briefest of smiles flickered in his eyes, but his stern expression stayed. "I'm Dwalin," he said. "You'd be the princess."

"Of Erebor," Morwinyon agreed sweetly.

Kíli barked a laugh, covering his mouth when Dwalin shot a look at him.

"She _is_ ," Fíli said, turning so he stood in front of her. She grabbed his hand and refused to let go.

"I'm not arguing, lad," Dwalin replied.

"Oh."

"This is Morwinyon," Kíli piped up. "She's hardly stuck up at all."

"Hardly at all?" Morwinyon repeated incredulously before she saw Kíli's smirk. "You – I am _not-"_

"Don't tease her too much, Kíli," Bofur advised. "She did blind a dragon."

"Oh sure, blind one dragon and suddenly you're too good for teasing, I see how it is."

"Kíli," Fíli sighed, but Morwinyon finally chuckled.

"No, I do not mind. I am only not used to it."

Kíli moved beside her, linking elbows. He was the same height as his brother, or nearly, so it was less difficult than it might have been even with Dwalin, who was slightly shorter. "You'll have to get used to it, I'm afraid. You're officially my elder sister and it is the job of younger brothers to tease."

"Is it?" Morwinyon asked as he towed her and Fíli down the hallway.

"Oh, definitely," Kíli said blithely.

If Morwinyon had been asked to predict what the inside of Erebor looked like, she would have said they must look like her father's halls. She would have been wrong.

Thranduil's halls were underground, with walls of dirt to go along with walls of stone, roots twined everywhere and everything clean and dimly glowing. The halls of Erebor were dark stone entirely, with no cheerful candlelight or polished roots for relief. The carvings would have been pretty she was sure, in better light and with less dust and mold. She could walk the halls comfortably, which was a relief, even if things like chairs and tables were scaled small.

"You have no idea where you are going," she accused Kíli after the third turn.

"I really don't," he agreed. "But look, I've kept turning left. Eventually we should hit the entry hall again."

"Why the entry hall?" Fíli asked.

"It is the only place I know how to find that doesn't currently contain Thorin. We'll drop off Morwinyon and go back and chat with our uncle."

"I don't _want_ to drop off Morwinyon," Fíli protested.

"Morwinyon does not like not being appraised of plans," Morwinyon said, "nor people discussing her as if she is not here."

Kíli winced. "Sorry?"

Morwinyon shook her head. She was not angry with Kíli, after all. "It is a good plan, I suppose, even if I want to hit your uncle."

"That makes it a better plan," Kíli pointed out.

When they reached the entry, she kissed Fíli in parting and waited until the brothers were out of sight around a bend in the tunnel before starting off the opposite way. She refused to be cowed by Thorin Oakenshield, and, after all, Fíli did deserve something better than a leather tie.


	13. Chapter 13

Erebor was easy to sneak through – Morwinyon's greatest worry was getting lost, especially since she could not read the inscriptions on the walls. They appeared to be sign posts, so she memorized the symbols next to the arrow pointing back towards the entry and forged ahead.

The Lonely Mountain still did not like her. The cold from the stones would have made her shiver if she had not ignored it so completely. Debris tried to trip her up. Some hallways were so dark even her elf sight could not penetrate the gloom, and from those hallways always came the worst of the shivers in her bones. _Go away_.

"No," she told the third hall that seemed to repel her, hands on her hips. "You cannot make me."

A sound like a huff of laughter abruptly cut off made her spin, but no one was there. She turned back to the hallway. "This is a strategic retreat," she informed it. "It in no way means I am giving up. I will be back with a torch, just you wait."

The tunnel seemed to grow even darker.

Morwinyon spent a long moment glaring into the darkness, refusing to feel ridiculous – themountainhad started it – before turning her nose up at it, turning on her heel, and colliding with something about the height of her hip. She leapt back as someone yelped.

At her feet was Bilbo.

Morwinyon blinked. He was not _so_ short that she should not have seen him, but here he was, sprawled on the ground, having apparently found her in the endless tunnels of Erebor without her noticing.

"Are you following me?" she demanded.

"No!" he exclaimed.

She narrowed her eyes.

"Well. In a manner of speaking? You were the one sneaking around!"

She narrowed her eyes farther. He had followed her without her seeing or hearing – well, aside from that laugh. He had managed not to lose her. He had not been in the mountain long enough to know the tunnels, either, so he could not have guess where she was, he would have had to follow her. _Closely_.

"I am exploring," she said.

"I think Fíli wanted you to stay in the entry," Bilbo said, somehow managing to sound apologetic. He had yet to stand up, and looking down at him was starting to hurt Morwinyon's neck.

"That is unfortunate for Fíli," she said with hardly any guilt. She would be back before he was. Probably. "I am not obligated to obey his wishes."

"It seems like a big risk, to go exploring," Bilbo said. "I mean, Thorin already doesn't like you."

"Thorin is a pretentious nitwit," Morwinyon retorted, at which point Bilbo finally stood.

"Thorin is a good man," he informed her, jaw set and finger raised as if to wag it under her nose. She rather thought the only thing stopping him was that he could not reach so far up. "Something is wrong here, that's all."

"Oh, is that all?" she asked, but she was taken aback by Bilbo's sudden stubborn defense and her words lacked bite.

Bilbo stared stubbornly at her a moment longer. Then he sighed, letting his hand fall. "That's all," he said. "It's all wrong. Can't you feel it? Aren't elves supposed to be wise and understanding?"

"The mountain likes me much less than Mirkwood did," Morwinyon told him in answer. "And Mirkwood's dislike of all of us is… not insignificant."

"Why do you live there?" Bilbo asked, brushing dust and dirt from his clothes.

"I do not anymore," Morwinyon replied. She did not want to explain that she had been born when the darkness in Mirkwood had already been strong, and that her brother had been born when it was green and dappled with sunlight and small children could run through the trees without fear. That there had once been many small children, but when she was born there had only been her. She was not sure she knew how to live somewhere without some sort of darkness constantly scratching at the windows of her mind.

"Hmph," Bilbo said.

Morwinyon realized she was fingering her marriage braid and dropped it. "As for elves being wise and understanding – well, dwarves are supposed to be tough and rough-and-tumble, and here you are fussing over your clothes."

Bilbo once again drew himself up, arms straight at his side and nose practically quivering in indignation. "I _beg_ your pardon!"

"Have I insulted you?" Morwinyon asked lightly. "My wisdom and understanding seem to fall short of the mark."

"I am not a dwarf," Bilbo spluttered. "I am a _hobbit_."

She blinked. "I do not know what a hobbit is."

"Obviously," Bilbo said in tones of great disdain. "Dwarf, indeed. I never."

Morwinyon waited for him to continue, but when nothing more seemed forthcoming she inquired, "You never what?"

"I never heard the like! A dwarf!"

"I did not mean to imply that I find dwarves lowering in any way," Morwinyon said. "Only the bit about your clothes was meant to be insulting."

Bilbo huffed.

"Fíli did not ask you to watch me," she said, in an effort to not be regaled with the differences between dwarves and hobbits or the particulars of Bilbo's garb, which the hobbit straightened indignantly as she spoke. She could ask later – about the differences between races, not the clothes – and right now she had a task to complete. A task that currently required getting rid of Bilbo.

"Well," Bilbo admitted, relaxing. "No. But he wouldn't want you in trouble, and I don't either, really, and Thorin… he doesn't like elves."

"So everyone informs me," Morwinyon said as dryly as she could manage, drawing heavily from Thranduil's usual drawling tone. No one, in her admittedly limited experience, could radiate dry superiority quite like her father.

Bilbo eyed her warily. "Yes. So if we might go back…?"

"I am not finished exploring," Morwinyon replied, and turned her back on him. Whatever hobbits were, clearly they were good at sneaking. Well, she had been disappearing practically since she could walk. Let him try to find her when she was _really_ hiding.

"Can I just – can you – oh, bother, _wait_."

"Why?" she asked, already five steps down the dark tunnel, general aura of hostility and lack of light be damned. She could feel her way along if it came to that.

"Thorin-"

"Does not like elves," she finished impatiently for him, but –

"Trusts me," he said instead. "If you're with me, maybe he won't be so… so…"

Once again, Morwinyon waited for him to finish.

Instead he said, "He'll think I'm keeping an eye on you."

"And will you be keeping an eye on me?"

"Well," he said. "Yes."

She eyed him. He _looked_ sincere. Fíli and Kíli had been glad to see him, and aside from questionable relatives they seemed to be glad to see the right people. She could not judge on the questionable relatives front, either. She decided to try something. "I want to see the treasury."

"Bother," muttered Bilbo, sounding not at all surprised.

"My father says some treasures of ours are here, and I wish to see them."

"Please don't try to take them," Bilbo begged. "Thorin can be reasoned with in time, I'm sure, only in the meantime-"

"I will not move them from the mountain," Morwinyon promised, laying her hand over her heart. "My word on it."

Bilbo's lips twitched, like he was thinking it over and looking for loopholes. It struck her suddenly that the dwarves had escaped from the dungeon somehow, and it would not have been through negligence on Tauriel's part. How would they have gotten the keys? None of the doors had been forced that she had heard.

She had not seen Bilbo cross the bridge with the others. How long had he lurked in her father's halls unseen? How much had _he_ seen? How much did he know of her?

"I just want to see them," she said. "I believe some of them belonged to my mother."

"But your mother must have many jewels," Bilbo said. "Though I admit I did not see her."

"If she did I have none of them," Morwinyon replied, and saw Bilbo caught her use of past tense. He winced.

"I have very little that was hers," she pressed ruthlessly, with silent apologies to Laeriel. Surely her mother would not mind Morwinyon using all the weapons at her disposal, even the mention of Laeriel's death.

Bilbo pursed his lips, looking past her and into the dark. "Bother and tarnation," he said. "Follow me."

Her mother's jewels, when Bilbo led her to them, were not in the main treasury. They were hidden away at the far end of one of the smaller rooms, a little curtained alcove whose concealing tapestry had already crumbled away. The jewelry was spread carelessly across the table, loose scatters of gems glinting amongst ornately worked pieces that Morwinyon made a face over. None of them suited her purposes.

"You see," Bilbo said. "All present and accounted for as far as I know."

Morwinyon hummed an acknowledgement, picking through the pile. All of this had been lost before Morwinyon was born, but Laeriel had been the subject of several drawings, and in most of them she had been wearing a particular piece.

 _There_. She drew out a delicate silvery chain twice the length of her arm, tiny white gems fixed to it at intervals, glittering like stars amidst the golden splendor of the rest of the treasure.

"You promised," Bilbo said warily.

"I did," she agreed, letting one end of the ornament fall back to the table. Bilbo sighed in relief.

She waited until he had started back down the corridor before she brought her foot up, trapping the strand of silver and gems against the table at a point approximately midway down the length, yanking up and twisting against the other end.

The chain, after a cursory protest, snapped.

"You-" Bilbo cried, suddenly back at her side. His face turned purple.

"I am not taking it out of the mountain," she reassured him.

"This was not our agreement!" Bilbo snapped.

"I think you will find it was exactly our agreement," she replied, wrapping the chain around her hand.

"I ought to tell Thorin!"

"Do," she said. "Be sure to tell him how you know of the event."

Bilbo glared at her. She glared back.

"These are _mine_ ," she told him. "They stay in the mountain now because I do, and if I choose to move them then they will be moved. You can tell Thorin or not as you choose."

Bilbo fumed, but he did not scurry off. Morwinyon went back the way they had come.


	14. Chapter 14

Fíli walked back to the entry hall after a long and frosty discussion with his uncle, Kíli trailing behind him.

"He's never this bad," Kíli said. "He always at least _listens_."

"To you," Fíli replied with very little bitterness. With Kíli, Thorin had always allowed himself to smile and have fun. Fíli had never taken it personally even before he had realized why. "Why are you so invested? I know you've decided you like Morwinyon, but Thorin refusing to give her the time of day wouldn't affect you talking to her."

Kíli snorted. "Maybe I want my brother to be happy."

"Maybe you're more serious about Tauriel than I thought."

"Yes, fine, if Thorin accepts Morwinyon then he'll be much easier to work around when I bring Tauriel back." Kíli paused and stopped walking with a frown. "You didn't think I was serious about Tauriel?"

"When have you been serious about anything?" Fíli asked, turning to look at him. He regretted it when he saw Kíli's face. "I don't mean that in a bad way."

"How did you mean it?" Kíli demanded, crossing his arms.

Fíli opened his mouth to say something soothing and closed it. The truth was that Kíli had always been a little wild, always quick to laugh or joke, always ferocious in quickly-striking affection, always infatuated with this or that person, and Fíli had always teased him about whoever had his fancy that week. Kíli declaring he was in love with someone was hardly _unusual_. He collected talented, driven, attractive people like Bilbo collected those lace doilies, and after the initial day or two of dramatics Kíli would settle into easy friendship with them.

He had never in Fíli's hearing planned to introduce them to Thorin.

But saying that would take too long, so Fíli said only, "You seem to fall in and out of love very quickly. I just didn't realize Tauriel might be different."

"I don't-" Kíli broke off and frowned. "Whatever. I'm serious about Tauriel. I'm going to marry her. If she'll have me, which might take some work, she's stuck on the part where our uncle hates her king."

"She did arrest us."

"Saving my life three times kind of smoothed that over for me, believe it or not."

Fíli nodded.

"So do me a favor and make sure Thorin likes your wife so he'll like Tauriel and we can live here instead of off in the wilds somewhere."

Fíli resumed walking. "Rivendell might take you."

"Tauriel would be an asset to their guard," Kíli agreed, perking up. "I could learn to cook. Or garden or whatever."

"Learn to like greens," Fíli added.

Kíli shuddered and said, "Please make Thorin like your wife."

They parted ways just before the entry hall, and Fíli entered to find Morwinyon sitting at the edge, looking out over the valley.

"How did it go?" she asked.

He sighed and sat beside her. "Not well."

She nodded. The last rays of sun fell across her face, where her scars were already less raw. Her ear looked healed already, even if the pointed tip was missing. He supposed nothing would have been able to grow it back.

"Bofur upbraided me earlier for giving you only a leather tie," Morwinyon said.

"Bofur doesn't know what he's talking about," Fíli said immediately, leaning comfortably against her. "He's never been married, how would he? Don't listen."

"I was not offended," she replied, putting her arm around him and turning slightly so she could rest her chin on his head. "Only a little embarrassed. He is right, after all."

"Not even a little," Fíli said stoutly. "I like leather."

"Well, good," she said. "I do not have a clasp for you – it is not precisely what elves do, you see."

Fíli grinned. "I figured something like that."

Morwinyon held up a long strand of silver and white gems that Fíli did not immediately recognize. "This was my mother's, and now it is mine."

"Umm," said Fíli, understanding now. He was too comfortable to be really upset, but niggling worry remained. "Please tell me no one saw you take that."

"Bilbo, but I do not think he will mention it."

Fíli reached out to catch the hand holding the jewelry, rubbing his thumb across the palm of her hand absently as he turned her hand back and forth to watch the way the dying light seemed to be absorbed by the gems instead of reflected. "How is this worn? I don't see a clasp."

"She wore it in her hair," Morwinyon said. "I am not sure that was its original purpose."

"Do you plan to weave it through _my_ hair?" he asked, amused. "That would be noticed quickly, and Thorin's will is rarely flouted without temper."

"Usually a woman's mother gives her daughter's betrothed a necklace, to show her blessing," Morwinyon told him with a small sniff. He assumed that meant she did not care about Thorin's temper. "My mother is not here, but her jewels are. I broke it off to be the right length: she had a great deal of hair to wind this through."

"Do you think she would have given her blessing?" Fíli asked. He said it lightly, but the question was a real one, and Morwinyon treated it as such.

"I do not know," she said. "I was very young when she died. I choose to believe that she would."

That was fair. He chose to believe a lot of things about his father, too, that he wasn't entirely sure were true.

"I suppose I could make a clasp," he said, not pointing out that it would be a very long necklace. "Jewelry is more Kíli's area of expertise, though."

"I do not need Kíli to make you a necklace," she retorted, sitting up straight. "Turn around. No, towards me."

Fíli followed directions, raising an eyebrow at her when she did nothing for a moment.

"I like looking at you," she said matter-of-factly. "Stay still a moment."

"I've been doing nothing else," he pointed out, and she wrinkled her nose at him. He no longer tried to tell himself it wasn't adorable.

Morwinyon folded the strand in half and looped it around his neck, where she tied a knot at the front that managed to look vaguely decorative. It settled below the hollow of his throat like it belonged, slightly warmer than the temperature of Morwinyon's hands could account for. He knew, because she did not move her hands from his chest after she tied off the necklace.

"There," she said. "That might not satisfy Bofur, but it satisfies me."

"I wish only for your satisfaction," Fíli said, his voice sounding deeper even to him. Morwinyon smiled down at him and leaned in for a kiss.

He rose up to meet her, smiling as one of her hands slid around the back of his head while the other remained stubbornly where it was. He caught the edge of her tunic, glad for the first time that her armor was a casualty of dragonslaying, and rucked it and her shirt up so he could put his hand against her skin directly. He had thought of her as fragile the first time he saw her, and he might have now too – except he had seen her cross words with a dragon and blind that dragon when she didn't like what she heard. Morwinyon was _anything_ but fragile, so when his other hand rested on her hip he let himself squeeze a little harder than he might have otherwise. She bit his lip in response, fisting her hand in his hair so she could move him exactly where she wanted –

Someone cleared their throat.

Fíli would have turned to glare, but Morwinyon's hand was still in his hair. She glared enough for the both of them, directing it over his shoulder.

"My apologies, Fíli, my lady," Balin said, and Fíli tried to leap away from Morwinyon; on the list of things Fíli would rather never happen in his life, Balin walking in on him and his wife was somewhere above orc attack and only slightly below fighting Smaug again.

Morwinyon frowned at him. Her tunic was bunched up over her hips, her shirt lay askew under it, and while none of her hair had escaped its braids the braids themselves had fallen from their arrangement to hang over her shoulders and around her face. Her lips were also red from kissing; Fíli gave up any hope of passing the whole thing off as a wrestling match.

Fíli cleared his throat. "Did you need me for something, Balin?" His voice _did not squeak_.

"I thought to appraise you of the state of the mountain, Prince," Balin said. "But if you're busy…"

"Of course not," Morwinyon said, releasing Fíli's hair to straighten her clothing and brush her braids back. "We are never too busy for important matters."

Balin's mouth quirked as Fíli hurried to straighten his own clothing and hair. He didn't protest Morwinyon including herself in the number of people who should be kept informed – in fact, he seemed amused. "Dwalin said you were embracing new allegiances."

"Did he?" Fíli asked. It didn't sound like anything he had heard Dwalin say before.

"I'm his brother," Balin replied, lip quirk widening into a wry smile. "I know what he means."

Morwinyon stood, brushing dirt from her knees and extending a hand so she could pull Fíli to his feet. "The mountain?" she asked.

Balin, despite his smile, did not respond for a long moment. Fíli kept hold of Morwinyon's hand and said, "You'll have to trust my judgment eventually, Balin."

"Just so," the old dwarf said. "The mountain is sound enough, structurally speaking. The worst of the problems are food – the main entrance to the spring seems to have been blocked by a rock fall, but there are other ways down. We can survive on the rations we brought, but our kinsmen will have to bring the materials for the upper terrace gardens and such. They have gone to seed or died out entirely, and the soil is less soil than… well, rock. And we need to deal with the bodies."

"Bodies?" asked Morwinyon. "I thought everyone fled or burned."

"Not everyone fled successfully," Balin said. "I would rather our people didn't return to rooms filled with corpses."

Morwinyon squeezed Fíli's hand. When he looked up at her she didn't look stricken exactly, but something lurked at the edges of her expression. All she said was, "No, we do not want that."

"The first order of business should be the bodies," Fíli said slowly, watching Balin to see if his response was what he wanted. Balin could, after all, have gone to Thorin, but he hadn't. If he had, Balin wouldn't be asking Fíli's opinion, because the way things stood Thorin wouldn't have let him. "Have them properly sent off. But we do need to clear the gardens as well as we can, and maybe see if Dwalin and Bifur can clear the spring entrance."

Balin nodded.

"Kíli and I will deal with the dead," Fíli continued more confidently.

"Will you?" Balin asked. He cocked his head to the side, examining Fíli more closely. His brows were raised as if in surprise.

Fíli raised his chin. "We can't wait for their families, but these people deserve what honor we can give them. If Thorin won't see to it, then I will give them the next best thing."

"You are not _next_ bestanything," Morwinyon murmured.

"No," Balin agreed, still watching Fíli.

"I will help with the bodies," Morwinyon continued when Fíli said nothing. He was trying to sort out how he felt about Balin's regard – it reminded him of how Balin used to look at Thorin, how everyone always looked at Dis.

There was still something tight around her eyes, but he let it go.

"You won't be more comfortable with the garden?" Balin asked.

Morwinyon's chin rose, which wasn't necessary to do in order for her to look down her nose at Balin. "I am a princess of Erebor," she said. "They may not think it an honor to be laid to rest by an elf, but I can only think they would appreciate that I did my duty."

Balin's face softened, and he smiled so the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were more prominent. "I have no doubt they would. Thank you, my lady."

Much to Fíli's surprise, Morwinyon ducked her head, the faintest hint of pride in her eyes. "Call me Morwinyon. Please."

"Thank you, Morwinyon," Balin said. "I'll let Kíli know and send the others to their places. If you don't mind, perhaps Bilbo can guide you?"

Morwinyon, Fíli noticed, looked suddenly more innocent, and he remembered that she said Bilbo had seen her take her mother's gems.

"Of course," Fíli said anyway. "Bilbo is always good company."


	15. Chapter 15

The room was crowded. It was the first thing Morwinyon noticed: there was little space for anyone to stand amongst the bodies.

"What do we need to do with them?" Morwinyon asked. Her voice sounded distant in her own ears. Fíli frowned at her.

Kíli shook his head. "Burn them, I suppose. We don't have means of identification, and we have all those memorials for people who died here already."

"Do you not have tombs?" she asked, staring down at these poor people, who had died of starvation or suffocation or maybe just fear. They had _died_. "Do you not think their families would prefer to know?"

"Their families know already, Morwinyon," Fíli told her gently. "Everyone knows, anyone lost then was lost forever."

 _Forever_ , the rocks chorused. Ours, not yours.

Morwinyon cleared her throat, thinking of her father on his throne and his often empty gaze. If he had seen her mother's body, would he still be as he was?

Fíli and Kíli would know the needs of their people best, though. She knelt to lift the body nearest her.

Dust fell when she lifted it. Hair crackled. She could feel the bone, she could feel… _Oh, no_ , she thought, knowing that if Fíli or Kíli or even Bilbo looked closely they would see her tremble. _Oh, no, I do not like this._

Death felt like the weight of the mountain, pulling on her arms, trying to make her drop the body – the person? – she held. When she looked down she saw the skin had dried and pulled back in a mockery, empty sockets wide and staring and mouth drawn open to reveal teeth.

Morwinyon swallowed. Dwarves died, she reminded herself. They died. She would not see these people in the halls of Mandos: they would not ask why her father had come so late, and why he had not aided them.

She would not have to tell them, because he needed to be there for my birth, for they knew I would be difficult. She would not have to say, you died, so that my father could give me a name I hate.

"I need to wash my hands," she said when they were finished. The flames in the forges had been hot enough to reduce even bone to ash, and none of the bodies had been wearing armor. She had almost put her hands in to sear away the sticky feeling that made no sense: all of the bodies had been dry as parchment.

Fíli took her hands, but when he did something flaked away from their hands and drifted to the ground. She flinched – had that been skin?

"Breathe," Fíli told her firmly.

"Are you going to faint?" Kíli asked.

"No," she said. "I am not woozy. Only – I will see all my kinfolk again, even if they are slain here."

It took them a moment.

"Oh," Kíli said. "I guess this is new to you."

Fíli squeezed her hands, looking up at her with eyebrows furrowed.

"It should be new to you," Morwinyon said to both of them.

"But it isn't," Fíli replied. "It never has been. We know we die, Morwinyon. _You_ know we die."

"I do," she agreed, but she clutched at Fíli's hands anyway as if she could keep him here. When she had countered his argument by the lake, she had joked about Beren. It was true that dwarves lived longer than men. It was true that she and Fíli had more time than Beren and Luthien – but Morwinyon did not have even their chance of forever, in whatever awaited men when they died. She and Fíli did not have either way, and she had known that, she had, she still did.

It did not mean she wanted to be reminded of it.

She shook her head and made herself release Fíli, dusting her hands together. "I could do with a bath," she said.

"Good luck with that," Kíli replied. "Who even _knows_ what our water situation is like."

"Dwalin will," Fíli replied, still watching Morwinyon. "I sent him to see to it."

"You sent him?" Kíli asked, laughing, and Fíli rolled his eyes and turned to his brother.

"I asked Balin to send him. It amounts to the same thing."

Kíli snorted. "When you command Balin I'll be really impressed."

"Not even Thorin commands Balin," Fíli retorted, giving up on shaming Kíli in any way and leading the way from the forges. Morwinyon followed the brothers, listening to them bicker.


	16. Chapter 16

Dwalin met them before they entered the great hall. His face was set. "Fíli can't go in there. Thorin' already angry with him."

"He must get over me sometime," Morwinyon said.

Dwalin snorted. "Thorin will never get over you, lass, but you're secondary for now."

Morwinyon did not like being secondary anything, even as an annoyance. Annoying Thorin was currently the only way she had to keep him from ignoring her.

Also, she would much rather Thorin be angry or annoyed with her than with Fíli.

"What could be more reason for anger than my presence?" she asked, dredging up her father's dry tones.

Fíli nudged her, elbow knocking into her hip. She made a face and subsided.

"What could Fíli have done?" Kíli asked. "He's the good one."

"You keep saying that," Dwalin observed, "but only one of you has married an elf."

Morwinyon exchanged glances with Fíli and Kíli both.

"As of now," Dwalin amended, tone severe and eyeing Kíli narrowly. "If you're serious. Tomorrow you could decide you like Ori better."

"You _are_ a shameless hussy," Morwinyon said, impressed. "Have you kissed anyone?"

"Much to our mother's chagrin," Fíli said before Kíli could answer for himself. "Nobody would talk about anything else for weeks, and by then he'd already kissed somebody else."

"Nobody talks about that time Fíli kissed Tasin," Kíli said pointedly.

"That's because nobody _knew_ about it," Dwalin said. "I certainly didn't."

"You kissed somebody other than me?" Morwinyon asked. "Was their beard really great? Did they have prettier hair than I do?"

Fíli pointed at Kíli, Dwalin, and Morwinyon in turn. " _You_ weren't supposed to tell anyone, _nobody_ was supposed to know, and yes, he had a beautiful beard. But nobody has prettier hair than you do."

"Galadriel probably has prettier hair than I do," Morwinyon mused. "Maybe Luthien. There are songs about it."

"Having never seen either of them I can't say for sure, but it seems unlikely. I'll write songs about your hair if you want."

She smiled down at him. "Write songs about me blinding dragons instead."

Dwalin cleared his throat. Morwinyon's attention went back to him.

"Avoid Thorin for now," he said, returning to his original point. "Bad news just came in."

"What would that have to do with me?" Fíli asked.

"That doesn't. _You've_ been undermining his authority."

Fíli's mouth dropped open. "Since when?"

"Since you ordered the work on the gardens, the clearing of the spring, you took care of the bodies…"

"But that needed doing," Fíli protested. "No one else was going to! And Balin asked what I thought, I didn't _order_ anything!"

"Did you not?" Morwinyon asked. He blinked up at her. She blinked down at him. She had been proud when he stared taking charge: after all, Thorin did not seem to be, not really, just sweeping up and down piles of gold. Fíli had seen what needed to be done and done it, much as Legolas and Tauriel had always done in Mirkwood. It had not occurred to her that he might not realize he was taking charge at all.

"It wasn't anything that Thorin wouldn't have ordered," Kíli said in his brother's defense. "Well. Usually, I mean."

"Thorin isn't…" Dwalin trailed off, looking over his shoulder for one long moment as though he could see his king, though even Morwinyon could not see through solid rock, and she had confirmation that her eyesight was better than the dwarves'. "He isn't himself. He thinks _I'm_ undermining his authority, too. Who knows what he thinks of Balin."

"But you're his _partner_ ," Kíli said, gesturing as if to a connection between Dwalin and the great hall.

"And you're his nephews," Dwalin said. "Doesn't seem to be helping much, does it? Maybe when Dis gets here he'll settle. Avoid him for now. Maybe it's shock, or – avoid him for now."

He left them to stare after him as he trudged away.

"Do dwarves have a different word for marriage?" Morwinyon asked finally. "Or is there a relationship that does not translate to Westron?"

"Sort of the latter?" Kíli said, making it sound like a question.

"Thorin has never had any interest in marriage," Fíli explained, brows furrowed as he too looked towards the great hall. "You can tell – that's why he wears the marriage braid _and_ widow's braid. That doesn't mean he and Dwalin aren't together."

"Oh," Morwinyon said, nodding. "I see."

"Men don't," Kíli said. "But Men are strange."

Having only met three, and all three being children, Morwinyon did not have enough of a sample to judge. Kíli and Fíli had met more, though, so she nodded.

"He really is going to have to get used to you," Fíli mused, still staring towards the hall. "I'm almost sure you're now Lady of Erebor. I mean, you _definitely_ are until mother arrives."

"Oh," Morwinyon said again, this time with much less understanding. "What does that entail, exactly?"

"Counseling the king and council," Fíli said. "There's always supposed to be a man and a woman in charge. It's not – well. Thorin and our mother shared power about equally – she's ruling while we're here – but sometimes things get confusing when, say, the next highest ranking member of the opposite sex is really far down the line. You're not, though! And you're used to being a princess."

I am used to being a princess in my room, she thought, trying not to panic, but then, how much easier would it be to foster peace and friendship between elves and dwarves if she had a voice on the dwarvish council? How much easier would it be to go to Thranduil and say _hear me_ , if she came with the weight of a nation and a people behind her?

"I have been a princess for one hundred and seventy-one years," she said instead of any of that, making herself sound confident. She hoped she sounded like her mother. "I have lots of experience."

Kíli frowned. "Tauriel isn't much older than you, is she?"

"Tauriel helped raise me," Morwinyon said. She frowned too, struck suddenly by something that had never occurred to her. Tauriel was not, actually, that much older than Morwinyon: Tauriel was young to be captain of the guard, let alone a caretaker. Tauriel was just _young_ , and Morwinyon had never noticed, not really, because Tauriel had always just done what needed doing. Tauriel had helped raise her, yes, but that was putting it mildly. After age four there had been caretakers, and Legolas always had time for her if she asked, but Morwinyon had hoarded questions and secrets like Smaug had hoarded treasures only to heap them all on Tauriel the moment she saw her. Tauriel had always been hers, shared with Legolas only because he had been Tauriel's friend first.

"Tauriel did raise me," she corrected herself. "But no. She is not much older than I am."

"Oh good," Kíli said. "Not that I object to older women-"

"Since even Morwinyon is more than twice your age, that's evident," Fíli said. "I want to know what that news was that made Thorin so jumpy."

"Balin will know," Kíli said.

"Balin will know, but will Balin tell me now?" Fíli asked. "Morwinyon? Your experienced opinion?"

Morwinyon frowned. "Balin likes you, and Balin wants what is best for the mountain. But he had to have been one of Thorin's most trusted, to have come here with him."

"All we can do is ask," Kíli pointed out. "It doesn't have to be complicated."

Fíli barked a laugh, and Morwinyon smiled. "True enough," Fíli said.

Balin, when they asked, said, "There is word of Men camping in the ruins of Dale."

"Dale was a city of Men," Kíli said. "It makes sense that they would move in."

"The treasure," Fíli said.

Morwinyon looked at him. "What of the treasure? Do you think they mean to take it?"

He shook his head, and Balin said, "Thorin promised a share of the treasure to the northmen when they offered us aid."

"Offered being a strong word," Dwalin muttered from behind Balin, cleaning an axe.

"Bard offered," Kíli said.

"The rest were bribed," Fíli admitted. "And he didn't offer help reclaiming the mountain."

"Probably for good reason," Balin murmured so quietly that Morwinyon, when she looked at him sharply, realized that no one else had heard. She also heard the tread of heavy boots from the hall behind her.

When she turned, Thorin stood in the doorway, even more regally clothed than before. "I see you have heard," he said.

"How much are we to give them?" Fíli asked.

The flash of ire in Thorin's eyes made Morwinyon step back so she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband – or as close as they could be. She regretted it when Thorin's attention snapped to her.

"My nephew's wife remains," Thorin said, voice heavy with disdain.

"Yes," she said. After a long moment she bobbed a quick bow. "Your Highness."

The corner of his mouth twisted, sneer there and gone again. _He doesn't want you here either_ , the mountain breathed.

Tell me something new or be quiet, Morwinyon slung back.

The rush of wind through the tunnel and the room blew everyone's hair back, dust stinging their eyes and getting into their mouths.

"You have not sent me away yet," she said aloud, not entirely sure whether she spoke to Thorin or then mountain. Maybe they were the same, right now.

"Not yet," one or both of them replied, and Thorin turned to Balin. "I want the main entrance blocked. Immediately."

"Uncle," Fíli said, stepping forward. Morwinyon stepped forward with him, which she knew was a bad idea but could not seem to help doing. She did not clutch at the hilt of one of her knives for comfort, though she wanted to.

"Uncle," Fíli said again, when Thorin only stared at them through half-lidded eyes, "they come only for what they were promised."

Thorin snorted and turned his attention back to Balin. "See to it, Balin."

He stomped out.

Balin's lips tightened, but Dwalin stood and slung his axe over his shoulder. "I'll take Bifur and see about moving that rock we cleared from the spring," Dwalin said. "Maybe take some more while we're at it."

Fíli sighed. "We'll help."

Morwinyon let out a sigh of her own and rolled her shoulders. Entirely healed. Really.

They got to work.


	17. Chapter 17

"There are elves with them," Bilbo said at her elbow the next morning.

Morwinyon, who had been tying her hair up, jumped. "How do you _do_ that?" she demanded. Sneaking was her talent: it was not fair that Bilbo did it better.

"He's a burglar," Fíli said, smiling fondly.

Bilbo wrinkled his nose. "Not as a living, I assure you. But yes, the men brought elves with them."

"Tauriel?" Kíli and Morwinyon asked at the same time, though only Morwinyon asked about Legolas too.

"Tauriel is the one with hair red as embers on a forge fire," Kíli continued helpfully when Bilbo did not immediately reply. "The captain. She can kill spiders with only a dagger, and-"

"I know who Tauriel is," Bilbo said. "For heaven's sake, I was creeping around that monstrosity while you lot sat in prison, I could probably tell you things you don't know about her. I only – it's that elf king. Thranduil. Morwinyon's father."

"I think we all know who Morwinyon's father is," Kíli sniffed.

" _Thorin_ doesn't," Bilbo pointed out, which prompted all four of them to look furtively around.

"Perhaps I should stay out of sight," Morwinyon suggested. Prudence, not cowardice. If her father did not know she was gone then there was no point in telling him right now: if he did and called for her she would go up.

Please let no one have noticed she was gone yet.

"Won't your friend have told him where you are?" Kíli asked.

"Tundir is not my friend," she muttered, but she took his point. "Maybe they missed each other on the road."

"Thorin is not going to be pleased," Bilbo said.

Morwinyon could not disagree.

Morwinyon wondered if there was a small chance her father would not see her on the makeshift battlements. She supposed he could have gone completely blind in the last week or so: stranger things had happened. Just because Bard had not mentioned it in his parley with Thorin -

Thorin, who fired an arrow right at the feet of Thranduil's steed.

Thranduil looked up, a baleful sort of glee in his eyes, and allowed his gaze to sweep the company.

He had not gone blind.

His lips moved on her name, though sound did not come with it, eyes widening and glee falling away as Thorin cautioned him not to take another step. Morwinyon tried a smile. It was weak: she knew nothing about this situation would go well.

"He was never going to shoot him," Fíli murmured to her, squeezing her hand.

She turned her smile on him, a little more strongly, and squeezed back before looking back at her father.

Thranduil's lips were pressed together, a thin white line on an even whiter face. It had not occurred to her that he might be afraid. A quick, jerky motion of his hand had his forces nock arrows and aim – had he brought the _entire_ guard? The dwarves, with the exception of Thorin, ducked below the edge of the battlements, Fíli trying to tug her down with him.

She did not go. "They will not shoot me," she said.

Thorin's eyes flicked to her and he asked, "Will they not, nephew's wife?"

"No," she said, and called, "Hello, father."

Bard jerked, nearly falling from his horse, and Thorin actually turned, lowering his bow. Not all the way, and he did not take the arrow from the string, but the bow was no longer pointed at Thranduil's face.

"Oh bother," Bilbo muttered. She doubted anyone else heard.

"I was going to tell you eventually," she said to Thorin. "Probably when you began to hate me a little less."

Thorin _hissed_ , bow swinging up to aim squarely at her chest. Bard shouted; Fíli yanked her back, putting himself in front of her, and Dwalin called Thorin's name. Kíli moved to stand beside his brother.

"Shoot me then," she said, crossing her arms. She supposed she should be worried about herself, but she had faced Smaug, who had been a great deal bigger and a great deal more likely to light her on fire. Mostly she was furious. How _dared_ he? He had not even lowered his bow when Fíli stood between them. He should have, he should have been worried for his nephew, he should have… "It will not help you."

"Uncle," Fíli said.

Thorin's eyes flickered, shifting between hate and fear and a brief, painful flash of love. He lowered the bow.

"I want her gone," he said, voice flat but echoing through the hall in a way no one else's had.

 _Go_.

Morwinyon wanted to argue – with Thorin, with the mountain, with what she knew her father would say – but she looked down at Fíli. She could not argue with the expression on his face, or his wide-legged stance. Fíli would fight for her if she wanted to stay, but he would hurt for it, body and mind both.

"I will go," she said.

She did not imagine the relief that relaxed Fíli's shoulders, or the same emotion, there and gone again, in Thorin's eyes.

Thorin could not have been afraid of _her_.

She shook off the idea, shoving the flasks of healing salve into Oin's hands and patting Kíli on the shoulder.

"How do you expect me to get down?" she asked.

Thorin grumbled as the other dwarves looked between everyone, and Morwinyon had a momentary thought that maybe she could not leave. The thought made her uncomfortable: she did not, after all, actually want to leave, why would it be upsetting to learn that she could not?

But Bilbo said, "There's some rope over here."

The reprieve was over. Fíli waited beside her as she tossed the rope over the side of the battlements with poor grace, but when she would have climbed over herself he stopped her.

"I love you, you know," he said, hand tight over hers. "I wanted to make sure you knew that. And I don't want you to leave – or I wouldn't, if… you know."

"I know," she said. "I love you too. And I am coming back for you, if I have to fight another dragon to do it."

"Yes," he said, and let her go.


	18. Chapter 18

Thranduil did not scold when Morwinyon stopped by his stirrup between him and Bard. He did not say anything, only reached out a hand as if to touch her scarred cheek but stopped before actually doing so.

It was Bard who asked, "Are you well?"

"I am in good health," she said without looking away from her father. "I am not _well_. My husband is locked in a mountain with a raving lunatic and you are about to assault that mountain."

"We might not have to," Bard said.

"Yes!" Morwinyon exclaimed. "Adar, only send me back and go. It may take time, but I am sure that eventually-"

"You are not going back there," Thranduil snapped. "Morwinyon, I do not even know what has _happened,_ you speak of a husband and you are clearly injured-"

"I am injured no longer, only scarred," she said, waving off his concern and his held-out hand. "Adar, I have fought a dragon! I am entirely capable of-"

" _No_ ," he snarled.

Morwinyon bit her tongue and took a deep breath. Thranduil seemed to be doing the same. After a moment, and in her most reasonable tone, she said, "Adar, I understand how you might be upset with me. I did leave without informing you, and I apologize."

"That is why you believe I am upset," he said flatly.

"I can think of nothing else I have done wrong," she replied. "Adar, I defeated a dragon! I did have help, but without me I am not certain Smaug would have fallen."

Bard coughed behind her.

Thorin, who Morwinyon was impressed with for waiting this long, shouted down, "You have what you came for!"

"We do not!" Bard called back, and looked down at her. "No offense intended, my lady."

Morwinyon flicked her hand, dismissing it as she turned to watch Thorin.

"You have all that I am willing to give," Thorin retorted.

"No one _gave_ me," Morwinyon muttered. Thranduil muttered something of his own that even she could not distinguish as he shifted his caribou so that he and it shielded her from the mountain. Her view of Thorin (and Fíli) blocked, she glared instead at the back of her father's head until someone came up beside her.

"Come away, Lady," Nurchon suggested, laying a hand on her arm. Her mother's lieutenant was as tall as Laeriel had been, and therefore slightly taller than Morwinyon herself and definitely taller than Thranduil. His Noldorin heritage was evident in how pale he was, and in his dark hair and lack of eyelid crease possessed by Sindar and Silvan alike. Morwinyon, of course, shared those features, as Laeriel had, but she and her mother had dark, almost black eyes instead of Nurchon's more typical grey-blue.

Of the fourteen left of Laeriel's Noldo followers, Mowrinyon knew Nurchon best, but that was not saying a great deal: her mother's Noldo might have come to terms with their Silvan countrymen-and-women, but they had always kept a distance from her and Legolas.

"Go with him, Morwinyon," Thranduil ordered.

She could see just enough of Nurchon that the quick flick of his eyes at Thranduil was visible. Just as they had come to terms with the Silvan, the Noldo had come to terms with their Sindarin king, but Thranduil did not usually give them even indirect orders so far as Morwinyon knew. Perhaps he did not want to know if their oath of obedience to Laeriel extended to him even now that she was gone.

Still, Nurchon tugged at her again. "Lady," he said, "your mother would murder me if she knew I let you stand unarmed on a battlefield."

"I have my knives," she retorted, before remembering that her knives were nearly useless now. She changed tactics. "And this is not a battlefield."

"Yet," he said under his breath.

"We have something to barter," Bard called up to Thorin, so Morwinyon ignored Nurchon and the other Noldo who had moved cautiously to the front and shifted so she could see the dwarves.

"And what would you _barter_ for my people's lifeblood?" Thorin asked.

Bard held out a stone. "I believe you have been looking for this?"

Thorin froze. _All_ of the dwarves froze, but Thorin's white-knuckled grip on the battlements must have been visible even to Bard. The stone – though Morwinyon could see little special about it save that it was, she supposed, pretty – meant a great deal.

Oh, Thorin, she thought, briefly and vindictively. You should have kept me longer.

Or perhaps not. Surely something so important would buy her readmittance – she and Thorin would both win. Even the mountain could not be so upset, could it? She looked again at the wall and saw Fíli, who looked _hurt_.

Morwinyon took one step forward, half-thinking to rip the stone from Bard's hand, just to hand it back to her husband, but even as she slipped free of Nurchon's hold Thranduil's hand clamped around her upper arm.

"Do not," he said, eyes on her again. She did not think they had been so close to each other in years, decades even: certainly they had not spoken this much in that time.

"Do not what?" she demanded. "Do not help? You barter with something they hold dear, something _my husband_ holds dear, and you could have perhaps let me stay and sorted out the entire-"

"In case you did not notice, Morwinyon, it was not I who sent you from the mountain," Thranduil said. "I _would_ have, but-"

"But Thorin did it first, yes, I admit it, Thorin is a bit off, but there are other people there, _good people-_ "

"Perhaps the dwarf that so caught Tauriel's attention," Thranduil said, and oh yes, she had been doing a very good impression of the dry tones he used now. No wonder they had been effective.

"His name is Kíli," she informed him, and, turning to Bard, said, "And he and Fíli saved your children. Sigrid and Tilda and Bain would not be alive if it were not for them, and this is how you repay them?"

"My children must eat, my lady," Bard said without taking his eyes from Thorin. "We were made promises, and we would have them kept."

"How did you even come by that?" Morwinyon demanded, trying to shift one step closer and instead being hauled a step farther away by her father.

Thorin had the same question, and Morwinyon knew the answer a short, stomach-sinking second before any of the dwarves let themselves think it. Who had known immediately where the treasury was? Who could walk about unseen? And who, most importantly, would Thorin have never suspected?

Her own sense of betrayal surprised her. She had twisted her words to him to suit her own needs, and even if she had not, what loyalty did Bilbo owe her? None. She had known of his skills, known what he could do, and still she had never considered him as any sort of threat.

She had never considered him a _massive hypocrite_ either.

"Do not take anything from the mountain, Morwinyon," she quoted at him as he scrambled to reach the tall, bearded Man who seemed to have some influence with Thorin. She entirely sympathized with Thorin's desire to throw the hobbit from the ramparts, though she was glad he had not done so. She thought.

"Yes, well," he said, miffed, "You saw what happened when I did. I was trying to protect you."

"Perhaps people should stop trying to protect me," she snapped. "Especially when they are set on being traitorous hypocrites themselves."

"I was doing it for his own good," Bilbo retorted, pointing a finger at her. " _And_ for Fíli and Kíli, you pompous-"

"I?" Morwinyon demanded, shaking off Thranduil's hand so she could stride towards Bilbo. It did not help her temper that Thranduil had let her go. " _I_ am pompous?"

"Let us not argue amongst ourselves when another threat looms," the grey robed man said.

Morwinyon glared at him. "I do not even know who you _are_."

Nurchon heroically smothered a laugh, but she knew the signs. She glared at him, too.

"You are not nearly so famous as you led me to believe," Bilbo told his companion, hands firmly set on his hips.

The Man grumbled.

"Mithrandir," Nurchon murmured in her ear.

Ah. So she did know of him, she just could not remember meeting him: she knew he had visited Mirkwood once at least, but it had been brief and overshadowed by her mother's disappearance soon after.

She looked back at the mountain in time to hear Bard ask, "What of it, Thorin Oakenshield? Will you have peace? Or war?"

War? she thought dimly. There are _thirteen_ of them!

She turned back to her father and yanked at his sleeve. "Adar," she said, "do not, please, if only for me."

"It is beyond my control now, Morwinyon," her father replied with no remorse whatsoever, still watching the mountain. "Thorin must answer for his word – and his wrongs."

"Naneth would not have wanted this," she pleaded.

Thranduil turned in his saddle. He was not angry, as she would have expected. When he leaned down to cup her cheek she knew he looked at her, but he looked past her too: her father would never stop looking for her mother in either of his children.

"It is my greatest sorrow that you know your mother that poorly," he said.

Thorin, of course, chose war.


	19. Chapter 19

"There are thirteen of them," Morwinyon protested, arguing instead of resisting when Nurchon boosted her up behind her father. "What kind of war can there be? Adar, let me talk to them, let me-"

"Who would you speak to, Morwinyon?" Thranduil demanded as he wrapped her arms firmly around his waist and held them there with one arm. "Who? Thorin will not listen. You think his followers will?"

" _Yes_ ," Morwinyon snapped.

"Tauriel is impressive," Thranduil said as if he had not exiled her. "I do not doubt the dwarf admires her, but-"

"My husband will listen," Morwinyon said, making sure each syllable was enunciated perfectly, speaking in Sindarin so there was no chance he could misunderstand her. She suspected willful deafness on his part earlier.

Thranduil's face tightened. "Whatever has happened-" he began, but he was interrupted by a horn blast.

In unison, the party turned their heads to see an army of dwarves marching over the rise.

"Oh," Morwinyon said weakly into the stunned silence. "I suppose there could be a war."

"Move," Thranduil ordered, wheeling the caribou around and setting his heels into its sides. "Make ranks!"

Nurchon and the other Noldor jogged with them, murmuring to each other as they went.

When Thranduil stopped a few ranks from the front, a female Noldo produced a mail shirt from somewhere and pressed it into Morwinyon's hands. "Put it on," she urged.

Thranduil glanced over his shoulder, nodding approvingly, before turning back to Dain Ironfoot. Morwinyon fumbled the mail over her head as Nurchon unbuckled her belt. The Noldo woman patted the shirt into place, and Nurchon rebuckled the belt. Morwinyon was glad of the many complicated dwarven braids, for otherwise her hair would have been caught in the neck of the shirt. Her marriage braid was covered, but the rest stayed fastened around her head.

"Now Laeriel might not kill me the moment she is reborn," Nurchon said. "Thank you, Orvaië."

Orvaië shrugged. "I serve the House of Fëanor."

Morwinyon had no response for that. She had known in an abstract sort of way that her mother was a descendant of Fëanor, but she had never thought much about it, or what it might mean for Morwinyon and Legolas. She did not have time to think about it now, as Thranduil pulled her arms around him again and held one of her hands over his chest.

When Dain claimed that Thranduil would rather see them all dead, she felt her father flinch.

"You could prove him wrong, Ada," she said, trying to sound polite. "It is easily done."

Thranduil gave one curt shake of his head.

"This is _ridiculous_ ," she hissed, politeness gone. "The dwarves are not our enemies! If you would only-"

Nurchon laid a hand on her leg. She looked down, ready to snap at him too, but he was not looking at her, and neither were Orvaië or any of the other Noldor.

"My lord, something is coming," Orvaië said. Thranduil threw her a furious look.

"You pay too much heed to Mithrandir when you should listen to your king," he told her, an edge of something in his voice that Morwinyon could not identify. It was not anger, and on second glance the look had not been furious, either. Thranduil's eyes were too wide for that.

"Were my king here I would be sure to listen," Orvaië retorted as behind her the other Noldor shifted uneasily, but Nurchon raised a hand before any more could be said. The other hand tightened on Morwinyon's thigh.

The ground shook, and something burst from the mountain range with a roar.

"By my mother's bones," one of the Noldor whispered in Quenya.

"Were-worms," Gandalf said grimly.

Orcs poured from the paths left by the worms, a solid mass of jeering, snarling monsters with weapons raised high.

Morwinyon did not pray often. The Valar were not prayed to, exactly. But her mother had a few sayings that Morwinyon remembered clearly, and one of them seemed applicable to the situation. "Mandos, keep not the ones I love in your company," she whispered. "Nienna, keep our sorrows for us. Varda, keep my blade as bright as may be."

Thranduil's hand tightened on hers, and Nurchon's released her thigh to draw his sword.

"Orders, Lord Thranduil?" he asked, ignoring Orvaië's quick headshake.

Thranduil said nothing. Dain ordered his soldiers up, riding with them to wait just behind the shield wall.

"Orders?" Nurchon asked again.

Nothing.

"Adar," Morwinyon said, "You must help them."

Thranduil was shaking, fine, barely there tremors that she knew of only because she was pressed all along his back, arm held around his chest and hand clenched in his over his heart.

" _Adar_ ," she said again, urgently, thinking of parchment-thin skin and gaping empty sockets, of the too-light weight of corpses that had been kept too long in the dark. "We cannot leave them to die."

"I can do what I like, Morwinyon," he said. It sounded automatic and he did not move. He shook still.

"You may do what you like," she hissed in his ear, "but I will do as I must, and I will wonder forever what happened to the king who faced a dragon."

She yanked her hand free and threw her leg over one side of the caribou, pulling her mother's sword from its scabbard on his belt as she went. Delu felt strangely comfortable in her hand, for a sword she had never held before.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, reaching for her again, but she stepped away.

"I, too, have fought a dragon. Set against that, this will be nothing."

He still did not move, so she shook her head in disgust and strode to the front, fully expecting Nurchon or Orvaië or another Noldor to stop her, but when she turned around to face the elves they stood with her father still. The looks on their faces ranged from wide, fervent eyes to frowns, but all fourteen watched her.

The Silvan watched her too. Rindir, recognizable by his near-noldorin black hair, led a company, and Bruineth, whose strawberry blonde hair made her nearly as recognizable, led another. Others she knew better by voice than by hair color or what little face was visible under their helmets stood there too.

None moved to follow her.

"There are orcs here," she called, the same way she had called for Smaug. Her voice did not echo over water now, but it rang out nonetheless. "Our enemy is here, and they want to kill these people."

She pointed Delu at the square of Laketown forces, which she realized a moment later might not be the most inspiring sight for a group of Men who did not understand Sindarin. She lowered the sword quickly.

"They want to kill the dwarves, too," she said. "They have always been enemies of the dark, as we are. Will you not fight for them?"

No one answered. No one stepped forward. Thranduil's caribou stamped restlessly.

Morwinyon lost her temper.

"Stay, then," she said. "I see your fear. Stay, and let these people die because you are afraid."

She turned her back on them and ran to join the dwarves.


	20. Chapter 20

Fíli had cheered with his kin when Dain's forces rode over the hills, but he wasn't cheering now.

"They won't help?" Kíli whispered.

"Why would they?" Thorin asked. "When have elves ever helped us?"

True, as far as it went: Fíli could not think of a specific instance that did not involve Morwinyon or Tauriel, at any rate. Perhaps back at the beginning of the world, before… before whatever. But he hadn't thought, with orcs on the doorstep, that elves would stand by against all reason. They would only have to fight the orcs after Fíli's people were killed.

 _If_ Fíli's people were killed, he corrected himself. Dwarves were hardy folk, and with their king at their head they would fight all the harder.

"How do we join them?" Fíli asked.

"The elves?" Thorin replied, the edge in his voice wedging under Fíli's armor and sticking. "You would know that best, sister's son."

"Our kin, mother's brother," Fíli retorted. "While we bicker, they die."

"They die for their home," Thorin said.

Fíli waited for more, maybe a rousing speech about how they would too, or how they the company would make it so fewer had to die. Thorin gave him nothing.

"Uncle?" Kíli asked. Thorin turned away, cloak whispering behind him as he left the battlements altogether. Dwalin followed him with one sad look over his shoulder.

"What do we do?" Ori asked, voice quavering.

"We obey our king," Balin said. "And I suppose we hope that Dain can last long enough for Dwalin to change our king's mind."

"One member of the royal house is with him."

They all turned to look at Bofur and then to where he pointed, where Morwinyon had joined Dain's battle lines. Fíli gripped the battlements with both hands and strained to keep an eye on her: what if Dain didn't know what her braids meant? The worry was silly, he knew, but still. Kíli gripped his shoulder and watched too.

"She needs a helmet," Gloin complained. "What good will she do with her head caved in?"

"She needs more armor all over," Nori said. "Whose idea was it to send her back without armor? Shameful showing, for one of the house of Durin."

"Where'd she get the sword?"

Bifur made a few disparaging sounds, but they seemed directed at the complaining dwarves, who quieted. He signed, _brave girl_.

"Yes," Balin said.

"I suppose so," Gloin muttered grudgingly, but he clapped Fíli on the shoulder that Kíli didn't already have a death grip on. "Could've done worse."

"Dwalin will convince Thorin, Fíli," Ori said. "I'm sure he will."

Kíli, Thorin's greatest champion even in petty family squabbles, said nothing. Fíli watched his wife salute his cousin with a sword brighter than it should be and, as Balin said, hoped.

* * *

Morwinyon saluted Dain Ironfoot, hoping desperately that he would take her service in the spirit it was meant.

"I am afraid I bring no one but myself," she said. "As you can see, my kin have let fear hold sway."

Dain's lip twisted as he looked beyond her. "You're the lass up on the great deer-thing," he observed.

"Yes," she said. "Should we not be preparing for the charge?"

He looked her up and down, lingering on the marriage braid she had pulled from underneath her mail, and said, "Which of the whelps married you then?"

"Fíli is not a _whelp_ ," Morwinyon retorted, the Westron word unfamiliar on her tongue but his tone indicating that it was disparaging.

Dain grinned briefly. "He is, and a difficult one too. But he isn't stupid, usually. You'd be Thranduil Oropherion's daughter – the princess."

"Princess of Erebor," Morwinyon said, not nearly as sweetly as she had to Dwalin.

"And of the Noldor," Orvaië said behind her, Westron far more strongly accented than Morwinyon's. Morwinyon turned to see five other Noldo with her, weapons drawn.

"I will not go back," Morwinyon said.

"I have no authority to take you back, Lady," Orvaië said. "You are the sister of our now-king, and the daughter of our liege-lady our former queen, and he is not here and she is dead. The others will follow when their conscience gets the better of them."

As yours did? Morwinyon wanted to ask, but she had more important things to do than cast recriminations or decipher Orvaië's careful but complicated Westron translation of something that would undoubtedly sound better in Quenya.

She turned back to Dain. "I bring a few others, then," she said.

He barked a laugh. "Fíli never was stupid, I suppose. What do you mean to do here, Princess of Erebor?"

Morwinyon blinked at him. "We kill orcs," she said. "What else is there to do?"

Dain looked to the orcs, whose charge had nearly reached his line. "What else, she asks. Nothing, I suppose. Do what you're going to do."

Morwinyon glanced back at Orvaië, who cocked her head, and back at Dain, who called for his people to hold steady.

She supposed that if she had learned anything from her father, it was that drastic times called for dramatic gestures. She raised Delu.

"Charge," she said, and lowered her sword as if she commanded an army entire instead of six Noldor. Perhaps her mother's people could be considered an army entire, anyway. She certainly _felt_ as if they were, charging at their head as they leapt over the dwarves' heads.

For a brief moment, airborne and about to crash into a horde of orcs holding a great many sharp weapons, she felt as she had with Smaug. It was terrible, leading a charge, but it was beautiful too – Orvaië and the rest followed her without question, and Delu gleamed, and Morwinyon thought for that moment that perhaps she understood why Laeriel would have chosen war.

Then, of course, she landed, missing a spearhead by a breath, feet planting solidly on the face and chest of an orc as her momentum pushed him to the ground, and elation faded as she swung Delu down to use that same momentum on the orc now in front of her. She realized too late that Delu would clang uselessly off a pauldron – but no, she must have changed the angle without realizing it. Delu cut deep, right where the neck met shoulder, and did not catch when she yanked it free to bash the hilt against another orc's unprotected face.

Orvaië cut down the orc that tried to run Morwinyon through, another Noldo grabbed the orc attacking him and spun, pulling the orc into the arc of an axe headed for Morwinyon. That orc fell, and Orvaië stabbed the axe-wielder as Morwinyon beheaded another foe. Delu felt firm in her hand, and she could not tell if she felt no resistance because of the sharpness of the blade or the adrenaline rush.

Fighting orcs, she realized, especially a whole host of orcs at the same time, was very different from fighting a dragon. On the whole, she might prefer Smaug.

She spun to avoid another axe, Delu leaving a long bloody cut along the arm wielding it despite the armor she would have sworn was sturdy and whole a moment ago, and saw a host of elves join the battle.

They did follow me, she thought, jamming Delu just under the arm of an orc, where the armor was weak, even if she was not at all sure that Delu needed the help, and once again Delu came free too easily so that she could swing Delu backhanded across the eyes of yet another orc.

Or maybe my father sent them, but at least they are here.

Orvaië beheaded a goblin and punched the orc next to it with a gauntleted fist. "We should pull back, Lady. Just enough that we are with the rest."

"I do not want to pull back," Morwinyon said, ducking out of the way of a large and ungainly sword. She noted, but only in the back of her mind, that Orvaië spoke in Quenya and she had replied in the same language.

"Perhaps _I_ want to pull back!" Orvaië shouted, but she was grinning even as she kicked the kneecap of another orc in and stabbed him in the eye when he fell.

Then it did not matter if they moved back or not: the other elves reached them, Nurchon at their head, and the dwarves disassembled their shield wall and joined the charge.


	21. Chapter 21

"I do not suppose this was what you were expecting," Tauriel said.

Legolas did not need to look at her. She knew what the set of his mouth would be. "They are creating an army."

"I believe they have already created an army," she pointed out.

He shook his head as she crept a little farther over the boulder they crouched behind. At this distance she would be difficult to see even with her red hair, but she wished for a hood anyway: she had shoved as much hair as she could down the back of her tunic, itch be damned, but the top of her head felt exposed.

The rocky slopes before her offered plenty of cover if she wished to creep closer, but would allow the orcs to rain deadly arrows on any army that tried to storm the only entrance. Perhaps there were more on another face of the mountain, but she saw no orcs trooping from anywhere else to join the one Fíling through the main entrance to line the only clear path.

And of course, there were the _giant bats_.

Tauriel slipped behind the rock again. Day-flying bats? What new devilry was this?

Legolas had not looked away from Gundabad. "We passed through my mother's last camp on our way here."

Tauriel, who had been the one to find the last camp when Laeriel had gone missing, and who had waited for Legolas to say something as they walked through the little copse of trees this time, said, "I know."

"You recognized it."

She nodded, though he did not look at her.

"I did not," he said. "I did not think of it until we were here. We went through it, and I did not think of her."

Tauriel reached out and tugged lightly at a lock of hair just behind his ear, as they and Morwinyon had always done. A quiet show of affection: no one else would have dared pull even gently at the hair of the prince or princess, and no one else would have wanted to pull at Tauriel's.

When he turned to her, eyes wide, she remembered too late that it had been Laeriel's way of showing affection too.

"Lady Laeriel would not want you to be distracted by her right now," Tauriel said, trying to sound more severe than she felt.

"Fair enough," Legolas agreed, voice rough. He cleared his throat and blinked rapidly, shaking his head once. "Let us go report."

* * *

They heard the battle before they cleared the pass.

"Too late," Legolas said grimly. "How did an army that size get here before us?"

"It does not matter now," Tauriel said as Legolas urged the horse into a canter. She leaned against him so she could hook her chin over his shoulder and speak directly into his ear. "You must ride to your father and bring news. I will stay and-"

The sight of the battlefield cut her off. The elves were here already.

"Nienna's mercy," Legolas whispered, yanking the horse to a halt.

"You should still find your father," Tauriel said long moments later, after she managed to absorb the sight. She thought of Thranduil and how he always had to occupy his hands when she gave reports of even small skirmishes. She had noticed that if he did not, his hands shook. "He will need you. I will find Morwinyon."

"She promised to go back," Legolas protested.

"Did she?" Tauriel asked.

She could not see his face, but she knew Legolas grimaced as he booted the poor horse forward again.

The horse put its ears back at the scent of orc, rearing when one leapt from behind a small ridge. The orc stumbled back as the horse slammed its hooves into the path where it would have been. Tauriel vaulted to the ground and slit the orc's throat before it found its footing again.

"Thank you, my friend," Legolas murmured to the horse, patting its neck as it shifted underneath him. "That was well done."

Tauriel shook her head, petted the horse's soft nose once, and entered the battle.

They had left Morwinyon with the men of Laketown. While Tauriel had her doubts as to whether she would still be with them, there did not seem to be much activity behind the newly constructed battlements of the mountain. Laketown's citizens would be a good place to start: Tauriel did not think for a moment that Morwinyon might be with her father.

And Tauriel could not shake the thought of Bard's children, who had faced a dragon with her and were so terribly young and terrifyingly mortal.

She slipped around larger clumps of fighting, stabbing here, slashing there, gone before friend or foe caught their breath. The walls of Dale held in most places, but that hardly mattered when orcs could stream through open or rusted gates. There Tauriel found desperate defenders, men and women armed mostly with makeshift or ancient and worse-for-wear weapons. There were very few bows, which explained the ease with which the orcs had crossed the bridges.

Tauriel killed an orc archer and, testing the draw of its bow, grimaced. Even were there many experienced archers amongst the people of Laketown, using an orc bow effectively would take more strength than most men had. As she thought that, and arrow zipped past her and thudded into an orc that looked as if he was considering attacking her. Tauriel glanced along the arrow's trajectory in time to see Sigrid fire another arrow, hitting an orc archer in the eye. The girl ducked down behind a mostly intact upper-story window ledge before the orc's compatriots could see her. Tauriel grinned and headed for the tower.

Inside there were a few dead orcs, apparently crushed by falling masonry. Tauriel managed to side-step a piece of worked stone as large as her head, but it was close: she heard Tilda hiss, "Stop it! That's an elf, you dummy!" as she started up the stairs.

Bain met her halfway. His sword had blood on it, and he had a large spreading bruise down one side of his face and neck that disappeared under the edge of his shirt.

"Sorry," he said. "We told the younger ones to shove rocks on anybody they didn't know – it was easier than having them think about it."

"Very wise," Tauriel said, wondering how many 'younger ones' there were and how much younger they could possibly be. She followed Bain back up the stairs. She had thought of it as a tower, and it was in a way, but probably it had been built as a guard post: it had three stories, all of which were open inside save for a wall running at human waist-height. That wall appeared to have been damaged on the third story, for it was pieces of it that the human children had pushed over. The stairs were steep, narrow, and along one wall. The first story was nearly the same height as the other two combined.

Bard's children and a few others had situated themselves on the top story, Bain and his sword just past the second floor. There were two dead orcs rolled ontot he second floor proper as if to clear the stairs.

"Your work?" Tauriel asked as they climbed.

"One," he said. "I'm not very experienced with a sword, you know, I'm better with a bow, but Sigrid's the best of us with a bow and we only had one and the other kids are alright with hunting or fishing but nobody else even knew how to use a sword-"

Tauriel laid a hand on his shoulder. He stopped for a breath.

"One of them shoved me down the stairs," he said, gesturing to his face as they cleared the final steps to the third story. "Hannah hit it with a rock, and it fell down and landed wrong."

A girl about Bain's age – Tauriel thought – nodded quickly, hands clenching and unclenching on a jagged bit of masonry with a dark stain. "I was lucky I think," Hannah said, light brown hair a tangled mess and wide brown eyes looking to Tauriel as if for reassurance.

"Sometimes luck is better than skill," Tauriel told her gently.

Bain smiled. "Da says that sometimes."

Sigrid said, as she poked her head up so she could survey the chaos below, "I'm running out of arrows. The ones from those orcs don't fly quite right."

"You were the one who wanted them," Tilda protested as she came to stand close to Tauriel. "Have you seen my Da?"

"No," Tauriel said, smoothing Tilda's hair as she had Morwinyon's, when she had had to say that she had found Laeriel's camp but not Laeriel herself. It was not fair that she always had to tell little girls that she had not found their parents, but it was far less fair that those little girls had parents who needed finding. "I am sorry."

"Da is fine," Sigrid said, tone brooking no doubt or argument. "We just have to last long enough for him to find us and we'll be fine too." She stood abruptly, one smooth motion, and drew, and sighted, and loosed. Tauriel could not hear a particular scream over the sounds of battle, but she had no doubt Sigrid's arrow had found its mark as the girl dropped back down again.

Tilda nodded. "And the dwarves?"

"Well, when last I saw them," Tauriel said, thinking about how many arrows were left in her quiver and how many she might leave with Sigrid. She did not want to leave, but she had to find Morwinyon.

"Are they coming?" Tilda asked.

Tauriel blinked down at her. "I believe I saw some in the field."

"She means, are any of Thorin's company coming," Sigrid said. Tauriel met her eyes with a sinking feeling: they were direct and unaccusatory, but Tauriel felt some weight of accusation anyway.

"They have not?" she asked.

"No," Bain said. "Not even Mr. Fíli."

Not even Kíli who Tauriel had thought so well of, they did not say, probably did not think, but Tauriel thought it for them.

"I do not know," Tauriel said, and Sigrid nodded.


	22. Chapter 22

"We have to go down there," Kíli said.

Fíli choked out a laugh, face buried in his arms. Balin kept looking at him worriedly, as well he might: Fíli knew he didn't look very princely right now, sitting with his back to the battlements, knees drawn up to his chest.

Kíli, who stalked up and down the wall and snapped at everyone, sword in hand, looked more like an heir should.

Fíli couldn't be bothered with anger. He had to worry about seizing power from his uncle and king before his people and his wife and _her_ people, not to mention the people of Laketown and the company's burglar, were killed by orcs. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Dwalin would probably side with Thorin – or he would have until recently. Could that have changed? Dwalin had stalked back into the hall half an hour ago and now glared at a wall. Balin… Fíli might be able to convince Balin. Gloin _wanted_ to go fight. Bifur, too, and Bofur and Ori wanted to help. Nori and Oin…

He knew these people. They believed in Thorin and the line of Durin, most definitely, but they believed in _home_ and _family_ more. They wouldn't have followed Thorin in the first place if they hadn't – they would have followed Thrain when he wandered off. Fíli wondered bleakly if this was to be the fate of all the children of Durin, or at least the sons: lead until someone younger and stronger and possibly saner simply took your power. He wondered if Thorin had wondered, when he took charge even before Thrain went wandering, if it was right. He wondered if, maybe, that had made Thorin wary of Fíli, if Thorin had ever considered that it might happen to him, if that was why Thorin looked at Fíli now as if he was the enemy.

That thought led him to the stumbling block of Kíli. Kíli could be a real problem, and Fíli hated to think of his brother as a problem. Kíli wanted to fight even more than Gloin, but he had always loved Thorin. Not more, but more _easily_ – Kíli and Thorin had always had the kind of uncomplicated love that came from expecting only love and having only love expected from you. Kíli might not want to side with Fíli against Thorin.

But Kíli would not want to side with Thorin against Fíli, either.

If he did this – if, he scoffed at himself, _if_ , be honest with yourself, Fíli – his mother might never forgive him. Thorin certainly never would.

Where would he keepThorin? In a cell? Under house arrest? Sent to wander?

Fíli shook his head. Balin would support him, so many in the Blue Mountains would. Would Dain? Dain might decide he would be a better King Under the Mountain – but, Fíli realized, he might, if he played his cards right, have the support of Thranduil of Mirkwood.

Mahal as his witness, Thorin was going to _hate_ him. Fíli got up to talk to Balin.

* * *

"I don't like it," Balin said.

"I don't like it," Fíli replied. "I hate it. But otherwise we stay here while our people die when at least we could offer shelter. Erebor isn't supplied for siege, but we have unfouled water and presumably Dain's folk have at least travel rations. And elves don't eat much, even if Bilbo will probably make up for it."

"You plan to have elves wandering the mountain?" Gloin demanded, ignoring Fíli's poor joke. "Ransacking our treasure, fouling everything up-"

"There isn't much to foul up at the moment, Gloin," Bofur said reasonably. "And we could hardly let _one_ elf in and tell the rest 'no, sorry, you'll get fingerprints on the rotting tapestries'."

"The elves will have that salve, too," Oin pointed out, trumpet miraculously functional for this conversation.

Bifur signed, _Siege impractical_. _Enemies will climb the mountain._

"They can climb the mountain at any time," Nori retorted. "It's a _mountain_. That doesn't mean they'll get in."

"Bifur's right," Dwalin said from behind Nori, who did not jump. "Even if we could get the rest of that lot in here, the orcs will come right after. At this point they're just waiting to come in until they've mopped up everyone else."

Fíli met his eyes – _not guiltily –_ and Dwalin gave him a grim nod. "Not that twelve of us will do much good anyway, but I always thought it was better to die fighting than end up like those corpses you took care of earlier."

"Lovely," Fíli said. He didn't shiver at the thought, but it was close.

"He can't stop us if we decide to just leave," Ori piped up, though his voice wavered a little. "He _shouldn't_ stop us."

"We can't leave and come back and say 'oh, sorry for the hiccup, you're our king again,'" Dwalin said. "Assuming we survived in the first place."

"No, we can't," Fíli agreed, trying to look as kingly as possible. Dwalin raised an eyebrow at him.

Bombur, who to that point had said nothing, asked, "What does Kíli say?"

Fíli raised his chin. "Nothing yet."

"What do I say about what?" Kíli asked. He was directly behind Fíli: Fíli closed his eyes so he didn't have to look at _two_ raised eyebrows from Dwalin.

When he opened his eyes, the rest of the company had melted away, leaving only Kíli to stare at him when he turned around.

"What do I say about what?" Kíli repeated, arms crossed.

Fíli opened his mouth to answer and closed it.

"What are you planning, Fíli?"

"You can't tell Thorin," Fíli blurted, as he had only once in their lives, as Kíli had only twice when they were small. They had never told, even when Dis had found out. Small escapades, but important at the time: Thorin still didn't know.

"I won't tell Thorin," Kíli promised after a long moment. "What did you-"

"It isn't what I've already done, it's what I'm going to do," Fíli said in a rush. "He can't stay, Kíli. You see what he's doing, he won't even try to save Dain and Bilbo let alone the humans and elves-"

"Or Morwinyon?"

"Morwinyon isn't why I'm doing this," Fíli said. He even meant it. If he had to save everyone else at the expense of Morwinyon he would, even if he threw himself off the top of the mountain later. Maybe that would solve everyone's problems, after: Kíli would inherit legally and nobody would have to follow a usurper king in the long term.

He'd rather Morwinyon didn't die, though. He'd _really rather_. It hurt enough to consider, let alone actually deal with.

"Shouldn't it be about Morwinyon?" Kíli asked.

"If it was about Morwinyon I'd have pushed Thorin over the wall earlier," Fíli retorted. Or Fíli would have gone with her. He had a _duty_ (he had several duties: duty as a prince, duty as a brother and a son and a nephew, duty as a husband. One had to come first, didn't it? He didn't think Morwinyon would like it if he abandoned their people for her anyway.)

"But _shouldn't_ it be?" Kíli asked, brow furrowed. "If Tauriel was down there I'd want to go to her."

"If Tauriel was down there you already would have," Fíli retorted, but Kíli only shrugged.

"Probably. I guess there's a reason you're the heir."

"Birth order," Fíli said dryly.

Kíli punched him in the shoulder. "You know what I mean."

"I don't," Fíli said, mostly truthfully.

"You're better at this than I am," his brother said. "You can think about what's best for everybody, even if it isn't best for… somebody."

Fíli snickered.

"Shut up," Kíli said, flushing. "You're better at talking, too."

"I can assure you, I am most assuredly not better at talking."

"Can I finish or are you going to be an ass?"

Fíli gestured for him to continue.

Kíli sighed. "I'm not selfish or anything, but I'm not good at figuring out what's best for everybody and you are, even when it might not always be best for specific people."

When he put it that way, it made Fíli sound terrible. It must have shown on his face.

"No, not – look, like now. You want to be with Morwinyon and you aren't, because you have to be here. I'm – I want to be more like you, sometimes. A little bit. I'm trying. Which is why I'll help with… with Thorin. Even if I don't want to. Because – look, it's best for Erebor and everybody dying out there, but it isn't best for you. You know that, right?"

"Yes," Fíli said. He had realized what was really holding him back: Thorin was going to hate him, yes, but Thorin hadn't really been _Thorin_ since they entered the mountain. Before that, maybe. No. Fíli was going to hate himself if (when) he did this. He hated himself a little now.

But Kíli didn't hate him, and Morwinyon wouldn't, and probably his mother wouldn't hate him forever. He would survive.

"Yes," Kíli agreed. "It isn't best for me, either. You and Morwinyon had better have _lots_ of children after all this. I don't ever want to deal with this nonsense again."

"If we survive I'll get on that," Fíli agreed. "Only because you ask it."

"Does sarcasm come with kingship?" Kíli asked, and shook his head. "Could you promise something for me, though? Just in case?"

"Anything," Fíli said immediately, and ignored the nasty bit of squirming doubt that came after.

"Help Tauriel, if you can? I don't think his-high-and-mighty majesty your father-in-law is happy with her."

"She'll be welcome with me, whatever happens," Fíli promised.

"And nothing's going to happen to you," Kíli said too vehemently, "but if something does, I'll keep an eye on Morwinyon. Back her up if she tries to fight any more dragons singlehandedly, that kind of thing."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that," Fíli said dryly, and, more sincerely, "I do."

"Right," Kíli said. "So. What's the plan?"

* * *

The plan Fíli finally hashed out was to simply leave, deal with the orcs, and, if any of them survived that, deal with Thorin. The company was in the final stages of preparing to demolish the wall when Thorin strode into the room.

All of them, even Balin and Dwalin, froze as if they were guilty children. He knows, Fíli thought, looking anxiously to Kíli. How could he not know?

Kíli shook off his paralysis and strode forward. "Uncle," he said, gesturing behind his back for the rest of them to continue their work.

"Kíli," Thorin said.

Fíli, who had turned back to haul the last of the rope into place, frowned. Did Thorin sound different?

"What is this?" Thorin asked.

Dwalin looked hard at Thorin, but Gloin nodded at Fíli, finger flicking the statue head they had rigged up. Ready.

"We cannot stay here," Kíli said before Fíli could gather his wits to inform his uncle (confess to his uncle) what he had done. "Uncle, we can't leave others to fight our battles for us. We can't leave Morwinyon and Dain to do our duty for us, while we stay here and cower behind a wall of stone – while even Thranduil fights!"

Thorin said nothing. He didn't move as Kíli approached.

"We cannot stay here," Kíli said again. "We can't. It isn't in our blood."

Thorin smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder. Fíli stepped forward, ready to protect his brother if Thorin decided he could do without such speeches, but Thorin only said, "You're right."

"I-" Kíli began as if to argue, and stopped. "I'm right?"

"Yes," Fíli told him, coming to stand next to them, and Thorin smiled a little at him. "You're right."

Thorin's smile fell as Fíli pulled Kíli a little away from him. He turned to the others when Fíli met his eyes stonily.

"I have not been myself," Thorin said. "I am sorry for it. And I do not deserve it, but – will you follow me?"

Fíli saw it, that moment the rest of them drew strength from their king and his return, and he felt strangely bereft. It didn't make sense, to mourn something he hadn't actually wanted in the first place, but still it hurt to know that everyone here would follow Thorin before they followed him, even after everything. Even Kíli stood straighter now.

Thorin turned back to his nephews, meeting Fíli's eyes again. "One last time," his uncle said, like a promise.

Fíli couldn't help it. He nodded.


	23. Chapter 23

Morwinyon glared at the mountain as Orvaië bodily removed an orc from her line of sight. Despite all their hard work, she and her Noldor had been forced away, back towards Dale, and she could not help but blame the mountain a little. It was almost as if it did not want her help.

"Landslide?" she grumbled to herself, stabbing an orc who had bashed one of her Noldor with a shield and tried to do the same to her. "Small earthquake? You were so demonstrative in your dislike of _me_ , is it too much to ask that you _do something now_?"

Whether the mountain was too far away to hear or too stubborn to listen she did not know, but in the end she supposed it did not matter: no miraculous earthen calamity decimated the hordes. She reached down and hauled the fallen Noldo to his feet, where he shook his head, winced, and saluted. They had lost none of their number, though Orvaië's face bore the marks of a close encounter with a shield. Her nose was probably broken – it would heal crookedly if a healer did not look at it soon. One of her people limped, another had lost her helm and had blood running in a curtain down her face, and one supported nearly the entire weight of a third.

Still, none of hers dead. Yet. She should look into learning all six of their names.

"We cannot reach the mountain," Orvaië said, and the Noldo Morwinyon had pulled to his feet nodded somberly.

"Damn the mountain," Morwinyon muttered, but she did not really mean it. Its favorites were already inside, and it was protecting them thus far. She did not think Mirkwood even _had_ favorites.

A burst of sound turned her attention to Dale. The orcs had collapsed a wall, and the tiny group of humans using it as shelter screamed and ran or screamed and fought as their natures dictated. Small steps, Morwinyon decided. Save people out here first, work her way back eventually.

"With me," she said.

"Where else?" Orvaië asked, and the Noldo man beside her smiled a little, and even the one who needed the support of his friend nodded and braced himself with a spear.

They went.

* * *

Tauriel left all of her arrows with Sigrid. She could scavenge more on the ground and had more experience adapting to different arrows, even arrows that were heavy-headed and poorly fletched. She had also left her spare knife with Hannah.

"Stay here," she told the children firmly. "I am going for help. Continue as you have until someone comes to get you."

She should stay, but she could not see how: she had to find Morwinyon, she had to find Legolas, she had to find Thranduil, she had to learn what had happened in the mountain that made Thorin's company unable to come out. The children were safest where they were, and she could find more to keep them safe if she looked than if she stayed.

Sigrid had looked at her calmly when she explained, and said, "I am used to taking care of me and mine."

Tauriel had not known what to say to that then, and she did not know what to say now, so she only hugged the children she could reach and left.

She killed the first orc a little way the tower's base before he knew she was there, and the next nearly as quickly. The two women they had been attacking blinked at her, bloody gardening tools in hand.

"Take the arrows you can from here and go to the tower," Tauriel said, pointing. "Try not to be seen – there are children there, and they could use your help guarding the stairs."

"Arrows?" one woman asked. She was old and bent, but she held her hoe as if prepared to use it.

"Sigrid will have need of them," Tauriel said.

"Oh, Sigrid," the other, slightly younger, woman said, straightening. "The tower, you said?"

They were off.

Tauriel turned back just in time to see a wall collapse not far from her, the people who had used it for shelter screaming as it fell. A troll burst through – a troll? In daylight? She supposed if the enemy had somehow engineered diurnal bats anything was possible – and raised its club to bring it down on a man trying to protect two other people with his body.

Tauriel reached to pull an arrow from her quiver, remembered that she had given them all to Sigrid, and ran forward instead. An arrow hit the troll's elbow before she reached him, and a tall dark-haired figure appeared barely a moment later, hamstringing the troll.

When it fell to its knees Morwinyon swung, Delu glittering, and all but beheaded it. Tauriel skidded to a stop to Morwinyon's right, just out of Delu's reach.

"Tauriel!" Morwinyon exclaimed as if she was not covered in troll blood. As she kicked an angry orc in the knee and ran him through she continued, "I thought you and Legolas had gone!"

"We had," Tauriel said, knocking aside a knobby mace and leaning in to slit the wielder's throat. "We returned."

"Indeed," said one of the Noldor that Tauriel had paid little heed to, since they were not Morwinyon and not attacking her. She sounded stiff, her voice a little nasal and nose obviously broken.

"Orvaië, I assume you know Tauriel," Morwinyon said. "These others are – a moment."

Tauriel nodded to Orvaië as Morwinyon fought off another two orcs easily. Delu fit Morwinyon as it had her mother – Tauriel did not like it even a little, but it did at least mean she could worry less about Morwinyon for the time being.

When Morwinyon turned back to them, a streak of blackish orc blood down her cheek, Tauriel said, "We should escort them to the tower."

Morwinyon blinked at her.

"The humans, I mean," Tauriel said.

One of the Noldor said something in Quenya about watching children, or perhaps not wanting to – Tauriel could puzzle her way through basic Quenya given time thanks to Morwinyon and Legolas, but she did not have time and he had spoken very quickly. It did not take a great deal of skill to know he spoke derogatorily, though. She frowned at him.

Morwinyon looked at the unfortunate Noldo coldly. He ducked his head.

In careful Quneya Tauriel said, "The humans are young, but they are not worthless. In the tower there are defenders."

The Noldor – all of them – blinked at her before relaxing, faces clearing, and nodding slowly. Tauriel glanced at Morwinyon, who shrugged.

"People of Laketown," the princess said in Westron, turning to those who had not fled. "I believe Tauriel has a place of safety for you."

"Relative safety," Tauriel clarified. "Sigrid, who is Bard the Bowman's daughter-"

"We know who Sigrid is," a man said. "Sensible girl."

"Yes," Tauriel agreed. "She and some others are where we would take you."

"Lead on, then, my lady," the same man said. "I suppose it won't be any worse."

With that ringing endorsement, Tauriel herded everyone back to Sigrid.

The fuss really began when Tauriel suggested that the most wounded of the Noldor stay and help the defenders. The argument was in Quenya, which was good in that the people of Laketown did not have to learn exactly how little the Noldor cared about them. It was unfortunate because they continued to speak too quickly for Tauriel to follow everything.

She looked at Morwinyon, who was frowning at them.

"They are not terrible, really," Morwinyon said in Sindarin when she caught Tauriel's glance. "Only. Focused?" I believe they will sort themselves out in a moment, or perhaps Orvaië will sort them."

Tauriel said, "You tok the bandages off too early."

Morwinyon winced. "I did not need them, Tauriel, really. See? Full mobility." She wriggled her fingers to demonstrate.

" _And_ you did not continue applying the salve."

"Where would I have found the time? I left it with Fíli, anyway."

"And why did you leave Fíli?" Tauriel asked carefully, for Morwinyon had apparently been married in the last few days since Tauriel had seen her and Fíli seemed the only likely candidate.

"Thorin," Morwinyon said, irritation clear. "My dear new uncle and his mountain can be most unpleasant, and my father did not help."

Tauriel took a moment to absorb that, and Morwinyon watched the squabbling Noldor while Sigrid still crouched by her window and ignored them all. Bain and Hannah were assisted at their stair guarding by the first two women Tauriel had sent; Tilda still reigned supreme over her rock-dropping minions, whose number had been enlarged by the other humans.

Morwinyon said finally, "Kíli was well, when last I saw him."

"Thank you," Tauriel said, biting back a smile. "Was Thorin so terrible?"

" _Yes_ ," Morwinyon groaned, turning and letting herself fall forward so her head rested on Tauriel's shoulder. "Tauriel, he is _awful_. I can only assume Dis is in all ways perfect – I can think of no other explanation for Fíli." After an eyeblink of a moment she added, "Or Kíli. He threw me out! He would have shot me! He might have shot _Fíli_."

Tauriel assumed 'he' was Thorin and not Kíli, and spared a moment to hate the king under the mountain as she wrapped an arm a little awkwardly around Morwinyon. As if Tauriel could protect her from anything at this point – as if Morwinyon would let her. Morwinyon had her mother's sword and her mother's people, now: maybe she did not need Tauriel any longer.

It did not matter, and Tauriel had a sudden – brief – moment of sympathy for Thranduil, who had always tried to keep his daughter safe even if she did not want it. Tauriel was not Morwinyon's mother and had never tried to be, but she seemed to have edged into some of the rights and responsibilities anyway.

Maybe if the Noldor stayed here with Sigrid and Bain and Tilda Morwinyon would as well, and Tauriel could worry a very tiny bit less.

Orvaië said a sharp word and argument ceased. The woman planted herself in front of Morwinyon and Tauriel, arms crossed, and said, still in Quenya, "Our place is with you."

Morwinyon straightened. Tauriel let her arm fall.

Morwinyon said in Sindarin, with the briefest of glances at Tauriel, "I believe that technically your place is with my brother. He _is_ the eldest."

Orvaië flicked her fingers as if shooing off a fly.

"He is here, you know," Morwinyon said.

"And?" Orvaië asked. "I swore to Lady Laire and her heirs, when I could have sworn to another of her uncles or even Gil-Galad. Heirs _plural_. I follow Morwinyon."

"If you follow me, then you follow my orders," Morwinyon pointed out. Orvaië lifted an eyebrow, daring Morwinyon to send her away.

Morwinyon sighed. "Fine. You may come, but the badly wounded stay here. Tauriel will declare what is or is not a bad wound."

Orvaië considered her for a moment and shrugged. "As you will."

"As I will indeed," Morwinyon muttered as Orvaië turned back to the Noldor. "A moment, though, before you look them over?"

"Were we not in battle you could have all of my moments," Tauriel said. "I suppose I can spare one now."

Morwinyon smiled. "You always could. Tauriel, I-" She made a face.

Tauriel waited.

"I entirely plan on surviving this," Morwinyon said. "And I plan for you to survive also."

"But?" Tauriel asked.

"No buts," Morwinyon replied. "But – well, yes, all right, _one_ but – even when we do survive there will be difficulty with my husband and your… Kíli."

Her Kíli, Tauriel thought wryly, but really there was no other way to say it at this juncture. "I will help Fíli however I can," she said. "However little that might be, given that I am still banished."

"Obviously that will be fixed," Morwinyon said irritably. "Adar probably regrets it now, but he will regret it more when Legolas and I give him no peace until he relents."

"Your efforts will be appreciated."

"Yes. Well." Morwinyon shifted. "What can I promise you? I will help Kíli as I can, obviously. But I – it has come to my attention that you have done a great deal for me, and I never – can I do something?"

Tauriel gave her the courtesy of considering. Morwinyon would not like it if she said _nothing, I want nothing_ , not least because it would not be true.

"Kíli," she said, thinking of the stone, and of Kíli's consternation when Tauriel had held it, and how he had given it to her later, by the lake. "His mother worries for him. I-"

She stopped. She did not know how to say, _someone still has a mother, and she is worried_ , and have her meaning understood. When she looked up at Morwinyon again, though, their eyes met, and she knew Morwinyon did understand. Neither of them had mothers to worry for them, no matter how Tauriel worried for Morwinyon.

"I will return Kíli son of Dis to his mother," Morwinyon said. "I swear it."

A returning Orvaië let out a startled breath.

"I do not need an oath," Tauriel said, eying uncomfortably the way Orvaië was uncomfortably eying her.

"A promise, then," Morwinyon said lightly. "You know I always keep my promises."

Tauriel nodded, and Morwinyon let her go check the wounded.

* * *

Author's Note: It has been pointed out to me that this fic has become a little 'Similarillion-y' for a Hobbit fic (which, The Silmarillion is where my heart truly lies, so in fairness... yeah, okay): The Shibboleth of Feanor is kind of a thing. It involves Oldskool Quenya vs That Thing All The Young Whippersnappers Use, and it can literally be boiled down to whether you pronounce Feanor's mother's mother-name as Þerindë (which is sort of like 'Therindë' only... not quite. I am not a linguist, which is why I just say the characters are speaking a langauge instead of actually transcribing the language) or Serindë. Þerindë is what she and by extension her son preferred. All the Newfangleds changed the Þ to s, and not just for her name. The Feanori weren't pleased. It became A Thing.

When I get around to writing more about Morwinyon's mom you'll learn that she spoke Oldskool Quenya, and that's what she passed down to her kids and what Morwinyon and Legolas passed on in fits and starts to Tauriel. So basically I figure the Feanori and Feanori sympathizers that are left are going to relax when they hear somebody speaking 'proper' Quenya. What that says about Laeriel and/or her followers... well. Have fun with that.

Also Tauriel has red hair, which may or may not be relevant.


	24. Chapter 24

"Fíli," Thorin said. Fíli didn't turn to look at him, though he did angle himself so he could see Thorin's reflection in the side of the still-glossy statue they were about to use as a battering ram against their own wall. Even if the reflection was distorted, Fíli would be able to see any sudden movements Thorin made.

"I'll talk even if you ignore me," Thorin said, sounding more uncle-like than Fíli had heard in a while. "I have things to say."

"I'll follow you, Your Majesty," Fíli said deliberately. "I don't know what else there is to say."

"You're angry with me."

"No," Fíli said with every intent of sarcasm before he realized he was sincere. He wasn't angry. He was too sad to be angry, too absurdly disappointed that his moment had come and gone almost before he knew it. He half wanted to apologize to Thorin.

"If you were, you'd have the right to be," Thorin said.

"I'm not. I'm-" tired, sad, confused, scared, let down… any number of things. He probably should be angry. It might be easier to deal with.

"I have not behaved like a king," Thorin continued after Fíli failed to verbalize any of that. "I have not behaved like an uncle, either."

"That's true," Fíli agreed. He watched Thorin's reflection carefully and wondered if Thorin knew. "You should apologize to Kíli. And my wife. If she's alive."

It was spiteful and unnecessary and it felt good when Thorin flinched, even if it didn't feel good after. Fíli sighed. "You would have shot me, Thorin, if you could not shoot Morwinyon. I saw it. She saw it. _Kíli_ saw it, even if he doesn't want to believe it. I realize you were not yourself, but what if it happens again?"

"It won't."

Fíli shook his head.

"Fíli. It won't."

"This is what I fear, Thorin," Fíli said, not ready to call him uncle again. He turned so he could look Thorin in the eye when he continued, "That you have been yourself with all the trappings stripped away, that you have always been small and petty. Maybe the mountain doesn't corrupt – maybe it shows us our true selves. I have seen you before: I have seen you greedy and harsh and unloving, though not to our people until lately."

"Maybe it does," Thorin said. "And maybe I am. But I know the mountain corrupts, for I have never hated you, Fíli, and I did there amidst the gold. I knew it was wrong when I said what I did, and I knew it was wrong when I did what I did. I never questioned those things, but you I hurt even as I tried not to."

"How unfortunate," Fíli muttered. "I will follow you, Thorin, but we don't need to talk for me to do that."

He pushed past Thorin, but he reached out and caught Fíli's arm. "I know what you meant to do, Fíli."

Fíli closed his eyes, preparing for recriminations and marshalling his arguments.

"I'm proud of you," his uncle said.

Fíli blinked his eyes open. Across the hall, Dwalin had seen Fíli and Thorin conversing and started over, Bifur and Kíli with him, but Fíli shook his head.

Thorin saw. Fíli felt the grip on his arm tighten for half a moment and relax. When Fíli looked over his shoulder at Thorin, his uncle looked only at Fíli.

"You were always so good, Fíli," Thorin said as if it were a confession. "So dutiful, and so aware. I could not have asked for a better heir. You are perfect."

Fíli snorted.

"I'll tell you a secret," Thorin said. "To parents, their children are perfect, and you were mine more than you were ever your father's. However much he loved you and however good he was, Dis put you in my arms first and I never let you go."

He could have said that Thorin only confirmed his tendency to take and keep, but… could you take something freely given? Could you keep what never tried to leave?

Fíli never had. He didn't know if Thorin would have let him go, but he hadn't ever tried. He hadn't ever wanted to try. He supposed that counted for something.

"I couldn't have asked for a better heir," Thorin said. "And after this – well. After this, if I survive, I'll be leaving, I think. Going wandering."

The pattern continues, Fíli thought dismally. Like Thrain before you, you just can't wait to be killed by orcs one way or another and leave me. He said, "I wish you and Dwalin the best, then."

Thorin tried to smile. It didn't work well. "I don't think Dwalin is coming. I said – there is no forgiveness, for what I said."

But he asked Fíli's forgiveness anyway. Thorin saw something of what Fíli thought in his expression.

"I can't _not_ ask your forgiveness, even if you don't give it," he said. "I left you alone to hold together a mountain with your bare hands, while I did my best to tear it down around your ears."

"I had help," Fíli said.

Thorin shook his head, but decided not to argue. "I could not be prouder of you, and I could not love you more. I wanted to tell you that."

"And my wife?" Fíli asked, watching Thorin's face. A muscle in his uncle's jaw twitched as he ground his teeth.

"I am sorry for almost killing her," Thorin said grudgingly.

"She'll be glad to hear it from you," Fíli told him, satisfaction this time untinged by guilt.

Thorin grit his teeth again, but he sighed and said, "Probably."

Fíli gestured to their makeshift battering ram and the dwarves behind it. "Shall we?"

Thorin, shoulders slumped ever-so-slightly, went to walk past him and away. Fíli, for a split second, contemplated letting him go, but – he didn't want to die at odds with Thorin. He caught Thorin's shoulder. His uncle stopped.

"I love you too, Uncle," Fíli said. "Try not to die."

Thorin's shoulders straightened. Fíli let him go.

* * *

"Are they doing something up there?" Tauriel asked. Morwinyon, who had been leaning against her in a brief moment of quiet carved out for them by Orvaië and the two other Noldor Tauriel had deemed well enough to accompany them, followed where Tauriel pointed. There was movement on the makeshift battlements of the Lonely Mountain.

"Do you think Thorin has decided to exile someone else?" Morwinyon asked. She hoped it was Fíli and immediately felt guilty for doing so.

"No, I – I do not know."

"Dain's folk are falling back," Morwinyon observed, straightening. "Let us aid my kinsmen, I suppose."

Orvaië, who had gained a slash across the cheek but remained otherwise remarkably unbattered, sighed loudly and pointedly but made room. Vorosandon and Wilyar moved too, leaving enough space between them for Tauriel and Morwinyon to charge through. Morwinyon used Delu more as a poity battering ram than anything else at this point: orcs seemed to give her more space than her companions and she used that ruthlessly to her advantage. It did not fail her until they had nearly reached the dwarves' line.

A large orc barreled into Tauriel, knocking her several paces back before Morwinyon even saw him coming. He kept shoving – Tauriel stumbled farther back, parrying heavy overhanded strikes from him and twisting to avoid another orc coming up behind her when Morwinyon called a warning.

The problem, Morwinyon thought as she and the others shifted course, was that the orc was so _large_ : Tauriel was fast and strong and clever, but he was nearly twice her size, had nearly twice her reach, and he was putting nearly all his weight behind those hammering blows.

An arrow took him in the eye before Morwinyon could reach them, and two of Tauriel's scouts came to their leader's rescue. One handed Tauriel a bow.

"Go!" Tauriel shouted, pointing again towards the mountain. "I will see who I can bring to catch up!"

Morwinyon hesitated, but Tauriel had backup. She turned back.

It was easier to reach Dain than she thought it would be, but then, the orcs did not seem to expect four elves to be joining the dwarves.

"Lost a few?" Dain panted when she slipped between him and the dwarf guarding his right side. "You'll lose more, coming in here. You'd have done better staying out there. At least out there there's a way out."

"What kind of Princess of Erebor would I be then?" Morwinyon asked.

"A live one," Dain muttered, but the orcs forced them back again and he attended to other things.

"You shouldn't have come in here," he said again, not long after. They were all but pressed against the mountain.

"Yes I should have," she retorted. "What would have happened if they had broken through on our right ten minutes ago? You know they would have if I had not been here."

"Perhaps we can get her up the wall," Orvaië suggested, looking up said wall. "If she stands on my shoulders-"

" _She_ ," Morwinyon said irritably, "will only get thrown off again by Thorin. Stop trying to save me."

"Saving you is my job," Orvaië muttered, but she fell silent in favor of beheading a goblin that tried to stab Wilyar. Vorosandon had fallen while holding the right, so Morwinyon was flanked by Orvaië and Wilyar while she herself flanked Dain.

"I am almost glad Tauriel never did catch up," Morwinyon said as the goblin fell.

Orvaië snorted and took a quick step back to avoid being run through: Morwinyon hacked off that orc's hand. "One fewer person for your brother to mope over."

"Legolas does not mope," Morwinyon said. "Not often, anyway. Not _excessively_."

Orvaië snorted again.

"'ware the wall!" Morwinyon heard, and she glanced over her shoulder, trusting Wilyar and Orvaië to keep her whole. Kíli stood atop the battlements, hands cupped around his mouth.

" _Move_!" he shouted, gesturing furiously to one side, so Morwinyon grabbed Dain by the back of his armor and Wilyar by his wrist and threw herself back and sideways into Orvaië. They tumbled to the ground in a heap, Dain swearing in what Morwinyon could only assume was Khuzdul. For a long moment nothing happened: they all began struggling to their feet to meet the orcs that came rushing at them.

The wall exploded outwards. Loose rock and broken statue pieces hit orcs and kept going. Larger pieces rolled over the top. Morwinyon suddenly had room to breathe, and in the ringing silence heard her name called.

"I am here!" she called back, making it all the way to her feet. "Fíli, I am here!"

She crossed half the distance before she remembered that she had companions, and looked guiltily over her shoulder. Dain hauled Wilyar to his feet and Orvaië hurried after Morwinyon, so Morwinyon decided not to worry.

Elsewhere on the field chaos reigned, but here, for now, there was quiet. It would not last long – the orcs were already regrouping – but she used the time to hurry to her husband, who only had time to step a little out of formation before she reached him.

"Sorry it took us so long," Fíli said.

"I know," she said, taking his hand and turning to Kíli. "Tauriel would wish for me to give you her greetings."

"Tauriel's _here_?" Kíli demanded.

"Yes," Morwinyon confirmed. "We lost her in the shuffle, but she had her scouts. Doubtless she has gone to take my father in hand."

"Doubtless," Thorin said, though it took Morwinyon a moment longer than it should have to realize who it was that spoke. His voice seemed smaller somehow. Perhaps it was only that she did not hear the mountain.

"Tauriel will set things to rights," she told Thorin. She felt that she had to defend Tauriel somehow, though she did not know exactly how or even what from, and she refused to say nothing to Thorin when saying nothing might mean being ignored.

"We should," Kíli began, but stopped and swallowed hard. "No. Later. Fíli?"

All of the dwarves looked at Fíli and then, as if remembering something, looked back at Thorin. Morwinyon looked at her husband, who shrugged and mouthed 'later'.

"Later," Thorin said. Morwinyon managed not to jump, but only barely, and by then he had continued, "we will see you kitted out better. That armor is a disgrace."

Orvaië, standing beside Morwinyon, glared at him. "At least we _gave_ her armor."

Thorin very obviously chose to ignore that. "Dain?"

"We'll follow you, Thorin," Dain said. Morwinyon could hear the echo of something not unlike the mountain in _his_ voice now. What had changed?

"We will," Fíli added, reassuring, but his voice held more than an echo – briefly it was as if the mountain had moved, and she stood inside it again. The feeling was less unpleasant than she would have expected.

"To the king!" Dwalin shouted, weapon raised, and "To the king!" rang out from Dain's dwarves too, and even Fíli shouted. Morwinyon could not quite bring herself to cheer in Thorin's name, but Fíli's name was being called as well, and even, she realized, her own. Even if only from Orvaië and Wilyar.

The sense of rightness in that should, she thought, make her uncomfortable. It did not.

Dwarves and elves shouting, orcs eying them all warily, her hand in her husband's – Morwinyon took it as her due.


	25. Chapter 25

The charge shouldn't have taken the orcs by surprise, but for whatever reason they fell back before the line of Durin and their followers. Fíli heard Morwinyon laugh, high and wild, but he couldn't look now. Ahead of him Thorin barreled into the first orc to stand its ground. It fell quickly, but the three after stood too and one knocked Orcrist aside. It didn't have time to do more than laugh and raise its weapon before Fíli removed its hand at the wrist and kicked it backwards.

Morwinyon outpaced him and slammed into another, raking the ever-so-slightly pointed pommel of her sword across the orc's eyes so it gave ground. She promptly ran it through. Behind her one of the elves hacked at the next orc to come too close to Fíli, and Kíli shot the next near Morwinyon.

Fíli hadn't seen Morwinyon fight anything more than Smaug ( _anything more_ , he scoffed to himself as he shifted so a blow glanced off his pauldron instead of his head), and she had been good. That had been with a bow, though, and maybe that made the difference: now she was something aside from good. It wasn't her skill that surprised him – it only made sense that she was good with a sword, she was a woman with an interest in the arts of war and had had more than a century to practice. He just hadn't expected her to be quite so _vicious_.

Morwinyon spilled blood nearly every time she struck, even if it was just to rake her nails down the face of an orc who hadn't bothered with a helmet, even if it was a jagged shallow scrape with the hilt of her sword. She didn't always aim for lethal blows, either – she took what openings there were and exploited them ruthlessly. She stamped on feet. She elbowed throats. She grabbed hair and slit throats and was splashed all over with blood.

Dwalin, when Fíli managed a glance in his direction, jerked his head at Morwinyon, made a face of grudging approval, and went back to hacking with his axe. Morwinyon forged farther ahead, one of the elves tailing her along with some of Dain's dwarves, Bofur, and Oin.

A streak of gleaming silver swung over Fíli's head and the orc about to bring a maul up into his face fell, face split in half crosswise.

"Pay attention, lordling," the other elf who had accompanied his wife admonished, accent thick. Fíli couldn't tell if they were male or female, but maybe that didn't matter to elves the way it did to humans. He'd have Kíli find out so no one caused a diplomatic incident later.

Fíli realized he'd drifted from Thorin in the battle. His uncle was not alone in a sea of orcs, but he wasn't well-backed either, so Fíli shouted for the elf to follow him and began carving a path back to his uncle, ignoring the niggling thought that it might be easier if Thorin died here with honor – or if Fíli did.

"Ravenscar," Thorin shouted at him when he drew close. Kíli arrived moments later, Dwalin with him. Fíli turned to search for Morwinyon and jostled the elf guard's elbow.

" _Now_ ," Thorin snapped, so Fíli gritted his teeth and followed without locating his wife.

* * *

Battle was exhausting. Morwinyon would have reflected further on the theme if she had not had to defend herself immediately after she downed another orc. She had lost Wilyar to a troll sometime after they were separated from the bulk of the dwarven forces. Bofur fell into his place with barely a pause, keeping her from being spitted on a javelin. In return she swept Delu over his head and decapitated the orc about to bring a rusted morningstar down on him.

"Where are they going?" Oin demanded, bashing an unfortunate orc's knees. The orc shrieked and fell, knees bent at odd angles. Oin dispatched him as Morwinyon stole a glance in the direction he had indicated: Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, and Orvaië were moving away.

"Azog's on Ravenscar," Bofur said as he used his lower center of balance to stop an orc in its tracks. One of Dain's people bashed the orc in the head with a shield. "They're going there."

" _I_ am going there," Morwinyon said, and darted after the sons of Durin.

" _Bother_ ," Oin said.

* * *

Orvaië kept pace with them easily on the way up the mountain. Fíli was not surprised. He was also not surprised that she ignored Thorin entirely, though he wished she wouldn't.

"Thorin is in charge here," he told her the sixth time she looked back at Fíli before following Thorin's very sensible directions.

"I serve the children of Fëanor," Orvaië said. "Thorin is not in charge of _me_."

Kíli made a face. Fíli didn't blame him.

" _I'm_ not a child of Fëanor," Fíli muttered.

"You are the closest thing I have to one at this moment," Orvaië said, looking down her nose at him, chin raised higher than he thought it normally would be.

Well then. Story of his life. Closest thing to a child of Fëanor when one wasn't available, closest thing to a king when Thorin wasn't available, and closest thing to a son when Thorin didn't have one.

That last wasn't fair, and neither was the closest thing to a king. Dwalin and Kíli still snuck glances at him as if to reassure themselves that he was still following Thorin, and Thorin knew it. Fíli could tell his uncle was trying not to be angry.

Once again Fíli considered how much easier it might be, politically speaking, if he died here. His mother would be upset though, and Morwinyon and Kíli and probably Dwalin. Thorin would be too, he knew, but he wasn't quite ready to consider Thorin's feelings on the matter.

There wouldn't be these looks, though. There wouldn't be this confusion. Everyone would know who to look to, and maybe Thorin wouldn't go haring off into the wilds. Thorin would have to at least make sure Kíli knew what he was doing before he went.

Kíli would be miserable, but Kíli was adaptable. He'd figure it out. Dis would go on as she always had no matter how sad she was – the reliable one, the survivor, the only one of three children to continue the direct line of Kings Under the Mountain. Kíli could deal with that responsibility too, Fíli thought uncharitably. It was easier than the ruling part, anyway, and Morwinyon – maybe Morwinyon would help with the ruling part. Maybe she'd stay.

Of course, if Morwinyon stayed Orvaië probably would too. That seemed like a bad idea.

An arrow shattered against the path, right at Thorin's feet. Orvaië flicked a knife, almost dismissively: it lodged neatly in the eye of the enemy archer as the small party of orcs around it jeered. Fíli decided to stop considering what ifs until there were fewer orcs to deal with.

* * *

"Do you know," Morwinyon asked the mountain as she scrabbled up the same part she had seen Fíli and the others walk up easily not that long ago, "I think you might be doing this on purpose."

Her foot slipped, sending her sliding down to only slightly higher than she had been. She gritted her teeth. "Which makes no sense," she continued after she caught her balance. "Do you still think I will go away if you make my life difficult? If so you are mistaken."

The previously solid-looking stone she planted her foot on as she spoke crumbled.

"I am not _leaving_ , you stupid _lump of rock_ ," Morwinyon snarled. "If Fíli is here, then I will be here." She dug in her heels so she did not slide even farther down. "You can help me or you can _get out of my way_."

However little sense that made, she felt better for having said it. She took a step forward, tested, and settled her whole weight on the spot. It held. She huffed and took another step, and another. By the fifth she stopped to look suspiciously around.

She was on a path. It looked as if it went for a short while and then hatchbacked up the mountain.

Morwinyon narrowed her eyes. "And of course this happening earlier was out of the question."

The edge near her foot crumbled slightly.

"Yes, thank you," Morwinyon said hastily, and began to follow the path.


	26. Chapter 26

There were disconcertingly few orcs when they reached the top, but Fíli was grateful for it. Orvaië didn't seem to share his sentiment.

"The rest are where?" she asked.

"Azog was here before," Thorin said.

"Has he fled?" Kíli asked.

Fíli didn't think so, but before he could say as much more goblins came up the opposite side of the mountain.

"Go scout for him," Thorin ordered as Dwalin readied his axe.

"Thorin," Fíli began, but Thorin cut him off.

"Take your brother and find Azog. It's the best service you can give me."

It wasn't about _service_ , Fíli wanted to say, but there weren't after all that many goblins. "Stay here," he ordered Orvaië, who he did not entirely expect to obey.

It seemed she would prefer to fight goblins than spend time with him, though. She nodded, smiling grimly, and charged. It wasn't what Fíli had ordered, but he supposed it was close enough.

He and Kíli slipped into the ruins of the old guard post. It wasn't quite as dusty as the halls below, being more open to the elements, but there were more fallen walls and ice had crept in, making the edges of the stairs especially slippery. A sound from above made Fíli stop, catching Kíli when he would have charged past to investigate.

It could be nothing. It could be eighty orcs hidden in an old armory with stolen dwarven steel. Either way they had to investigate, but…

There were rooms below, carved directly into the mountainside. They should be checked as well, and there were more exits. Usually, that was where the heir should go – better avenues of escape, easier reporting to Thorin. But usually kings and heirs wouldn't be risking their necks in the same conflict anyway, and usually the heir wouldn't have just staged a barely aborted coup, and _usually_ the heir wouldn't have his younger brother with him, thereby neatly collecting all of the direct male heirs of Durin in one place.

He wasn't going to send Kíli into something that could all-too-easily be made into a trap if it wasn't one already.

"You go downstairs," he ordered.

Kíli shot him a look and tried to shove past him. Fíli caught him again.

"Downstairs," he said. "That's an order."

"From my king?" Kíli hissed.

"Yes," Fíli said.

Kíli stared at him. He clapped Kíli's shoulder, squeezing tightly for a moment before shoving him back. Kíli went.

Fíli watched him go for a long minute, but, finally, turned and went up the stairs.

* * *

Morwinyon heard the fighting several hatchbacks down. She ran flat out, cursing and cutting corners dangerously, until she hit the top running and used her momentum to tackle an orc about to run Dwalin through from behind. She dispatched the orc and looked up to find one left, but Orvaië shoved it negligently over the edge and it fell screaming.

"I see my help was not needed," Morwinyon said, trying to sound careless instead of winded. Dwalin snorted and held out a hand to haul her to her feet. It was less helpful than it might have been, given that he was even shorter than Fíli, but she appreciated the gesture.

"Where is Fíli?" she asked once she was standing.

"Scouting," Orvaië replied. "Though I have yet to see a stealthy dwarf-"

"I have yet to see a stealthy elf out of the forests," Dwalin retorted.

"I believe I am insulted," Morwinyon said, and Dwalin chuckled and reached up to pat her back harder than she felt was necessary.

"Hopefully Fíli and Kíli will have found some trace of Azog," Thorin said, looking not quite at her face. "You tracked us to the mountain – could you track him away?"

"We knew you went to the mountain," Morwinyon replied.

"Yes or no, niece?" Thorin bit out, sounding as if he was trying to be polite. He had called her _niece_.

"I can do anything you ask of me," she told him. Dwalin clapped her on the back again, and she let herself smile.

"As soon as Fíli and Kíli return-"

"King under the Mountain," a voice called. "You seem to have misplaced this."

Thorin turned. Morwinyon looked up. Everyone froze.

Azog held Fíli, dangling him over the edge of the ruins as if he weighed nothing. Dwalin grabbed Morwinyon's wrist when she took a step forward as if compelled, her toe hitting a pebble and sending it skittering across the ground. It was louder than it should be. She tried to pull her wrist away and looked back when she could not: Dwalin's face was a study in stubborn grief.

She did not look at his face long. Fíli was not dead _yet_ – Dwalin did not need to wear that expression.

Could she throw Delu? She was not sure she trusted her aim with Azog holding Fíli in front of him. Fíli only hung there, looking resigned.

How dared he look resigned? She was going to save him, she was going to save _everyone_ –

"Let him go," Thorin said. His voice grated on her ears.

"Why?" Azog asked. Morwinyon was not sure why his honest curiosity was more frightening than the maliciousness she had expected.

There was no answer they could give, not really. She shifted her weight to better hurl Delu into Azog's face – Azog smiled at her. It was too wide, and he had filed all of his teeth to points. The fresh blood on them appeared to be his own.

"Just get rid of him," Fíli said, sounding tired, but Azog's bladed arm was at the small of his back. Azog could kill Fíli before any of them could touch him and they all knew it.

"Please," Thorin said.

Azog considered, head cocked to one side. Finally he said, "Kneel. Not the rest of you."

Fíli shook his head, but Morwinyon was prepared to break both of Thorin's knees if it meant he would obey, no matter that he had called her niece. She was going to get Fíli out of this.

She did not have to raise a hand to Thorin. He sank slowly to his knees, back straight, eyes on his nephew.

"I think you can do better," Azog said. Fíli did his best to glare at Azog, twisting unnaturally in the air, and Morwinyon heard the scrape of the blade against Fíli's armor.

Thorin's throat bobbed as he swallowed, but he twisted his mouth in an approximation of a smile and bowed until his nose brushed the snow.

"There," Morwinyon said, not entirely certain which language she used. "Now let Fíli go."

Azog tilted his head to the other side, examining her. "I do not take orders from elves," he said, and stabbed.


	27. Chapter 27

Morwinyon had not screamed on Smaug's back, she had not screamed when his blood had run over her or his scales had cut her, and when she had fallen with the heavy weight of dragon falling after her she still had not screamed. She could not remember ever having screamed: it had always seemed important, somehow, a point of pride, not even in frustration when the walls of Thranduil's halls had seemed as if they were closing in. She had occasionally wondered if she _could_ scream, or if the ability had withered away.

"Watch," Azog said, to Thorin, not to her, and did not so much drop Fíli as flick him away like the body of an annoying insect. Fíli fell with a wet thump, eyes wide and staring, and something clawed up her throat, burning like her face had when the dragon's blood had hit it or whatever it was inside her that made Mirkwood unbearable.

Morwinyon screamed now, but it was not really a proper one – it did not peter out, or even cut off abruptly. She choked on it, strangling it even as it strangled her, where before she had not known it was possible to choke on a sound, and Azog turned his gaze to her and laughed.

She hurled Delu on reflex, but Azog had already moved so that another orc took Delu through the chest instead.

He looked down at the dead orc, eyebrows raised, and reached out to draw her mother's sword free as Morwinyon yanked out of Dwalin's hold to catch up with Thorin, who had already run to Fíli.

"Dead," Thorin said, voice cracking, when she skidded to her knees beside him.

"No," Morwinyon snapped, shoving him out of the way. An arrow missed them both by inches, but she curled her lip at it and turned back to her husband. "I can fix him."

Thorin clutched at her shoulder too tightly, but she ignored him until he asked, "Can you?"

" _Yes,_ " she said, desperate and trying to think. Elrond healed people all the time. Her mother had saved her father when he had been half melted by dragonfire, a stab wound could not be more difficult than that, how did they _do it_ …

A sword sliced by her head, and she watched a lock of her hair fall over Fíli's face just before an orc body fell across her, the hilt of the sword in his chest digging uncomfortably into her rib cage. Thorin hauled the body off and grabbed her by the collar.

"You can't," he told her, and before she could point out that everyone always told her that and that so far they had all been wrong, he dragged her bodily away.

* * *

Orvaië was no stranger to battle. She had sailed with Feanor on the ships; she had fought with Feanor when he died; she had served Caranthir and Erien and when she recognized their heir at Sirion she had followed Laeriel into civil war and border guarding and seen her stand against Sauron. She had followed Laeriel until Laeriel had no longer been there to follow.

Feanor she had been proud to serve, though she could not remember why. Laeriel she had served perhaps out of exhaustion.

Laeriel, she reflected, had a way of being exhausting from even beyond the grave, for Orvaië saw only her influence in Morwinyon.

She could have served the boy, she thought irritably, dispatching an orc each with sword and dagger. But she had not – she had followed the daughter, who had looked at her with Erien's eyes and held Laeriel's sword. She could have followed Maedhros instead of Caranthir, too, in Doriath, but Maedhros had not been married to Erien, and he had not had the same drive his father and Erien had shared.

 _Legolas_ would not have married a dwarf, thereby obliging Orvaië to protect one and feel guilty when she failed, she reflected as she kicked another orc off the side of the mountain. Legolas was probably going to marry a silvan, which sparked its own flare of indignation in her chest, but his mother had, after all, married a sindar.

She caught an arrow that had been aimed at her face and stabbed the nearest orc in the eye with it, considering the dynastic prospects of her deceased liege-lady's children. Elrond had a daughter _and_ two sons. Why could Laeriel's children not look in that direction? Then again, Elrond's children were partly human.

Orvaië's pool of viable lieges had shrunk rapidly in the past several thousand years. Erien would be so disappointed. Orvaië sighed deeply as she stepped aside and allowed the orc that had been trying to run her through stab his compatriot behind her instead.

She supposed Laeriel had never done what she should have, either, or Orvaië would be in Lindon now, and Laeriel would be a true Noldorin queen, and Laeriel might possibly still be alive. Feanor's get had never done what they were supposed to, and Feanor never had either.

It was why they all died, Orvaië supposed. They burned a little too brightly, cared a little too much, died a little too quickly, and Caranthir at least had married the same kind of person.

But Orvaië was sworn to make it a little less quick, so when she saw the orc about to kill Morwinyon while she knelt sniveling over the dwarf Orvaië did not consider doing anything but hurling her sword across the gap.

Stupid thing to do, throwing away your weapon. She supposed she deserved the blade that slid through a rent in her chainmail and up under her breastplate.

The orc bared his teeth at her when she craned her head to look at him. "You Noldor die easy," he hissed gleefully in mangled Sindarin, but when he tried to pull the sword free she only grabbed his hand on the hilt and pulled him closer.

"Not so easy as you," she told him in her own tongue, and slit his throat with the dagger she held in her other hand. She let go of him and staggered when his weight pulled the sword free, warm blood pulsing out onto the leather and mail. It would be awful to clean, but she supposed she was dying, and dead people did not need to clean their armor.

Dying might not be so bad. Presumably her true lord waited for her in the Halls: presumably Erien did too. Maybe Nurchon would be there, and she could finally show him what real loyalty was.

It would have been nice, she thought, darkness closing in, to have been proud to serve again.

* * *

Tauriel had been searching for Thranduil for what felt like an age. He should have been easy to find and should have been surrounded by guards, but she kept collecting small groups of elves that appeared to have been scattered across the entire battlefield. If Thranduil had lived through fighting a dragon and died here on a battlefield not even led by a captain of the enemy…

Well. She supposed if he did, he would have to answer to his wife. Tauriel, though, would have to answer to Morwinyon and Legolas, so she kept looking.

She was somewhat hampered by the addition of Sigrid's group to hers, for when she had stopped to see how they fared they had been out of arrows. Tauriel could not make herself leave them all behind a second time, so she herded them down the stairs with her scouts and the three remaining Noldor, half thinking to fight her way to the edge of the battle and send them packing.

Sigrid refused to leave without her father. Tauriel could not in good conscience gainsay her.

She found Thranduil –finally – in the ruins of Dale, where his guards and a few humans parted to let her and her companions through.

"My lord," she called, sketching a quick bow and purposefully not thinking about the fact that she had, technically, been exiled.

"Tauriel," he said. "I presume you bring my daughter safely back to me."

The cold stare he levelled at an elf nearby made Tauriel notice Tundir, whose eyes were fixed on the ground.

"I cannot bring Morwinyon where she does not wish to go," Tauriel said, knowing as she said it that it would not be well received. Thranduil's hands shook despite his aura of cool irritation. When he saw what she looked at he hid them in the folds of his cloak.

"Truly you are of no use to me," he said.

Tauriel had seen this facet of Thranduil before, though never directed at her. She had always had his favor, as his children's friend and someone he had always appeared to feel a vague sense of responsibility for: the gifted orphan girl whose loyalty had always been unquestioned.

His sudden lack of favor was unpleasant.

"Morwinyon has gone to the mountain," she said. "We should follow."

He snorted.

"My lord," Tauriel said, moving closer and speaking quietly. Hopefully those within earshot would at least pretend they could not hear. "You are afraid, and that is understandable, but I will go with you, and so will the rest of your people. Let me be your shield and sword – or bow, if you prefer. But let us go find Morwinyon and save the men, and the dwarves too – or will you let them die because you are afraid?"

She did not know why it was the wrong thing to say, only that it clearly was. He drew back immediately.

"Morwinyon is not _yours_ ," he told her, low and furious, voice shaking now to match his hands. "And you tell me too that you wish to replace Laeriel in all her roles? Stealing her daughter is not enough for you – you seek to be my right hand, and perhaps my son's, and perhaps queen of the Greenwood as well?"

Tauriel could not muster the defense required against such charges: if someone could replace Laeriel Glingaerien in the eyes of anyone Tauriel had not met them, and she did not wish to either. Morwinyon was close enough, and Morwinyon Tauriel loved. Laeriel had been someone to admire, perhaps, someone to respect, certainly, but not someone Tauriel could ever be, and in the end Laeriel could not help anyone now that she was not here.

"I replace no one, my lord," Tauriel said finally. "I wish only to help those who need it."

Thranduil, whose hands trembled more even as she watched and whose face seemed frozen in a permanent sneer too pronounced to be truly mocking, snarled, " _I do not need it_."

Too many times had she heard something similar: when she fought spiders that multiplied exponentially no matter her efforts, when she tried so hard to call Mirkwood The Greenwood as it darkened and warped around her, when she had asked to take Morwinyon with her on scouting trips or surveys or even just for the girl to visit her cousins in Lothlorien or Rivendell, where Morwinyon might have learned to love poetry or trees or healing instead of longing only for battle, where she would not have looked out her window every day into a forest that wanted them all dead.

She was not sure if her last thought had been entirely about Morwinyon. It did not matter in any case.

"You have always needed my help," Tauriel said.

Thranduil took a step back as if she had hit him.

"You say I have _stolen_ Morwinyon," she continued, her voice rising, unable to stop herself. "You say I have not returned her to you? She is not a thing to be returned, _my lord_. If she looks elsewhere for guidance, perhaps you should ask yourself why – and if she prefers my company, perhaps you should ask yourself why for that, too. You have never asked her, after all. If she did not have me, who else would she have? You want to keep her safe? Well, you have failed at that, too, for she was dying there in the wood more surely than she could be here. And where would you be without me, when the spiders come and Dol Goldur presses our borders? You would be in your office, longing for your wife and wishing it all away. But Laeriel is gone and you have left us to rot, your daughter not least of all."

"Do not speak of Laeriel-"

"You spoke of her first," Tauriel retorted. "And you loved her, it is obvious, but we all have people we love here _now_ , and they could be dying, and you could try to stop it."

"People we love," Thranduil repeated. "What you feel for that dwarf – It is not _real_. You think it is love? Are you ready to die for it?"

"You live still," she said.

Thranduil barked a strange, hoarse laugh, hands clenching in his robes. "A fitting punishment."

Tauriel turned her back on him and almost ran into Legolas. The prince steadied her, and she walked away, Legolas trailing at her heels.

"Come back with my daughter," Thranduil called after her, "or do not come back at all."

"I will find Morwinyon," Tauriel threw back over her shoulder. "I do not think that means you will see either of us again."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Orvaië would more properly be thinking of Laeriel and her grandmother by their Quenya names but I figured nobody would know who the hell I was talking about if I swapped them around at this late a date for a one-off POV character, so I used the Sindarin names that you all know and (hopefully) love.


	28. Chapter 28

Morwinyon did not technically fight when Thorin dragged her away from Fili, but she did not make it easy either, nearly overbalancing him when she managed to get her feet back under her.

He opened his mouth as if to issue an order but had to duck an orc's swing before it actually escaped. Morwinyon punched it somewhere in the vicinity of its face on instinct and Thorin ran it through, and Dwalin had gone somewhere but there were many fewer orcs now anyway.

Orvaie lay some ways away. Morwinyon would consider that later.

"Sword?" she asked.

Thorin shook his head. She supposed her knives would do. It was lucky Azog could not handle a bow, or they would probably all be dead like –

She shook her head.

An arrow shot by, taking another orc in the eye, and Kili nocked another arrow as he ran up the stairs towards Azog. Had he seen, or was he just taking the opportunity? Either way, she charged after him, ignoring Thorin's shout.

She had forgotten how dulled her knives were from climbing Smaug. She remembered when they did not cut quite as cleanly when she fought her way through the dwindling group of orcs, and when one caught on rusted chainmail and stuck for a moment. They could still kill things, she reasoned. They could still kill Azog.

She desperately wanted to kill Azog.

A flight of stairs ahead of her another orc, a large one, leapt at Kili as if from nowhere. She leapt over them where they tussled on the landing and kept running up, taking the steps two, three, sometimes four at a time, why did dwarves make their stairs so small -

There were two orcs with Azog when she finally reached the top. She used her momentum to slam into one, sending him stumbling off the edge and down below, and kicked the ankle of the other. He did not stumble, but he did step close enough that she could slash at him. Her knife skidded off rusty mail, but she brought her other hand up and into the slit in his helmet. He fell, knife in his eye, and she faced Azog.

"Hello, brat," he said, sounding amused. "Does Thorin Oakenshield now send children to do his work? Or did he not realize just how young you were?"

"No one sends me," Morwinyon retorted, stepping closer.

"I saw you, when the dwarf fell," Azog continued as if she had not said anything. "Have dwarf-elf relations come so far, since last I heard? Or was that one special?"

Morwinyon could not help but snarl at him.

He nodded slowly. "I see. Well." He held up Delu, which was when she noticed that he has discarded his own sword. "You should not have thrown this away, brat. It might have helped you."

When Morwinyon had asked Tauriel to train her as a scout she had known what it was she asked - Tauriel had even then been the best. It was not, Tauriel told her, because Tauriel was inherently better or more skilled. It was because Tauriel was a fighter, in ways perhaps even Laeriel had not been.

"When all else fails," Tauriel had told her young friend, "use your teeth, or your nails, or headbutt your enemy. Use rocks or chairs or whatever. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is more important than your goal, which in this case is you getting out of whatever fight you are in, and getting out alive."

The last bit, of course, was Tauriel's advice to Morwinyon, not how she handled herself. Morwinyon knew it. It did not mean that Morwinyon had not embraced the idea, though Tauriel probably would have wished that she had embraced the second part more.

Morwinyon's goal was Azog's death. Azog stood before her. He probably did not expect the rock she hurled at his head.

He dodged it, but had barely enough time to avoid her knife when she used the split second of distraction to get in close. The long, jagged tear in his cheek gave her some satisfaction before he twisted Delu and she ducked aside, earning a quick stab to the elbow instead of one to the throat. When Azog yanked her mother's sword back it left a rent in the chainmail shirt over her shoulder, and she felt the thin trickle of blood run down her arm.

She drove her knee into his groin. When he curled up to avoid most of the impact, she brought her knife down on his hand. If she could make him drop Delu…

But he moved, and Delu's point found its way to her calf, and she rolled away, trailing even more blood. Her leg did not want to support her when she stood, wobbling, but she did not let give way.

Azog smiled at her, Delu hanging lazily from one hand. She realized why: she was on the very edge of the tower overlook. She would not die if she fell, but it would hurt.

"I hardly have to do a thing," he said, almost wonderingly. "Tell me, was Laeriel Glingaerien truly as skilled as they say, or was it all to do with this?"

Morwinyon charged him again, but he kicked out, planting a foot solidly against her chest and _shoving_. She stumbled back to the edge, catching herself just before she went over. The edge crumbled, pebbles tumbling down.

Fine. Delu wanted blood. Azog wanted hers. Let him have it: _she_ wanted Azog's, and she did not have to survive to meet her goal. If he ran her through, he would be close enough for her to _do something_.

"That is an interesting question for someone who cannot kill me even _with_ it," she said.

He ignored her. "Just because you brought me Curufin's sword," he said, "I will kill you quickly."

 _Laeriel's_ sword, Morwinyon thought, but she shifted her weight so when she pulled Delu in she might not be moved off too quickly. All she needed to do was stab him in the throat.

He lunged. Morwinyon braced herself. The edge of the overlook gave up entirely, sending her plummeting even as Delu sliced.

Now the mountain decided to help, she thought furiously as she fell.


	29. Chapter 29

Tauriel had lost Legolas somewhere. There was a joke to be made about princes and princesses and the losing thereof, but she could not think of it - she was too busy climbing a mountain that could not seem to make up its mind about helping or hindering her.

Maybe Legolas had just been unable to climb the mountain, she thought, and dug her toes into the sliding scree that seemed to be wherever she put her feet, no matter how solid the place had looked before she put her foot down. The higher she went, though, the better she became at forging ahead, and the better the footing became, too.

She heard the fighting before she saw it, and gritted her teeth, running up the last twenty feet or so. The plateau she lunged onto was in chaos, but it seemed to at least be minimized chaos - there were fewer orcs, and Dwalin and Thorin seemed to be handling them well enough. That begged the question, though: where were Fíli, Kíli, and Morwinyon?

Tauriel did not have time to look further before an orc attacked her. She dispatched it and fought her way to Dwalin, barely dodging his instinctive axe-chop at her midsection.

"Oh, _you_ ," he said, and before she could ask continued, "Morwinyon and Kíli went after Azog."

"Fíli?" she asked, blocking an orc's half-hearted unarmed swing with a gauntleted arm and slicing his throat.

Dwalin shook his head.

Tauriel did not swear, but she wanted to. Morwinyon had not even been married a week, and now her spouse was dead.

The next orc died a little faster. Tauriel had wanted all of this to end before, but now she wanted it to end _i_ _mmediately_. Enough of her people had died.

"Where is Azog, then?" she demanded.

Dwalin cut down an overly ambitious orc and jerked his head at the old watchtower.

Tauriel looked up in time to see an orc tumble from the edge of the watchtower and hit the ground hard. Tauriel did not stop to watch anything else. The stairs were yards and yards away, and while the orcs were being whittled down there were still plenty. Neither of those stopped her: Morwinyon was up there, and Kíli had followed her. Tauriel knew where she was supposed to be.

She had resorted to running over the orcs by the time she found herself at the stairs, calling for Kíli and Morwinyon.

Tauriel did not try to stop as she hurtled around a bend in the stairs. She was not sure she could have if she tried, with the momentum she had going. Instead she caught a ruined railing in one hand and used it to slingshot herself around the corner.

She slammed shoulder first into an orc . He was large, and she recognized the one that had shot Kíli and the one that Legolas had described as formidable. He had sunk armor into his own flesh - the ooze around the edges made her wonder how he had not died of infection. Tauriel, shoulder screaming, yelled in pain even as she drove a knife up into his ribs with all the force of her hell-for-leather run.

The knife shrieked as it skidded across another embedded piece of metal, slipping off to the side, but Tauriel still did not stop. She twisted out of the way of his club and kicked, driving her heel into his arm. She had meant to hit the elbow and shatter it, but she hit just above. He dropped his weapon still, but only Kíli's full body tackle kept him from grabbing her throat.

The orc staggered back, clawing at Kíli's face, but Tauriel was not having it. _No one else dies_ , she thought, even if she had no real way to enforce it. _Varda, Mandos, Nienna - you helped Lady Laeriel once._

She brought both knives down, one into the orc's chest and one into his head.

The orc was having difficulty with Kíli. The angle was off, and Kíli's grip was tight and strong, and probably he was distracted by Tauriel. She supposed it made sense that he gave up trying and instead grabbed one of her knives in a meaty hand, reaching out to grab her throat with the other and hurling her over the edge of the mountain.

* * *

Kíli hadn't meant to let Morwinyon face Azog alone. He hadn't meant to let her face Azog at all, in point of fact. He'd promised Fíli, and he kept promises to living people. He wasn't going to break one to his brother after he'd - Bolg had derailed him. He was, therefore, going to kill Bolg, and get on with backing Morwinyon up. He'd promised.

Killing Bolg was turning out to be more difficult than expected.

It was the armor that was the trouble for both of them, Kíli decided. Bolg's was almost as effective as an offense even if it left more area open to attack, assuming you were good with a sword, and Kíli's was nearly full-coverage but not as heavy. He'd so far managed to avoid direct hits that would go through his mail shirt, but Bolg had managed to avoid Kíli's stabbing.

Kíli wished he was better with a sword. He wasn't bad, by any means, but he was a much better marksman. It was Fíli who had inherited Thorin's skill with a blade.

He was considering making a break past Bolg to run after Morwinyon when a step collapsed beneath his foot, sending him sprawling to the ground as Bolg's club whistled through the air where his head had been. Bolg tripped over another step but managed to catch his balance as a bit of wall crumbled, piling rock between him and Kíli, giving Kíli a moment of breathing space. He was hauling himself to his feet and turning to go up the stairs when he heard Tauriel calling for him.

Tauriel would help Morwinyon too, and he couldn't leave her to fight Bolg by herself either. He turned back and climbed the pile of rock just in time to see Bolg make a lunge for Tauriel. Kíli threw himself atop the orc with a yell.

He'd hoped to distract Bolg, and he did. Just not for long. Kíli kept his grip on Bolg's arm and neck, ducking his face against Bolg's shoulder to avoid the one groping hand. He looked up only when he realized Bolg was no longer reaching for his face, which was how he didn't see anything but Tauriel midair.

Kíli released Bolg's arm with half a thought to reach after Tauriel. Bolg took advantage of it, reaching back with both arms to drag Kíli over his shoulder and bring him two handed down over his knee.

Kíli heard a crack, and then there was pain, and then he thought, _but I promised_.

Then there wasn't anything.


	30. Chapter 30

Morwinyon hit the ground hard and rolled, bits of rock tumbling over her. She couldn't tell if Delu had managed to cut her again or if the blood she could feel running down the side of her face and neck was from the fall. She flung out an arm to try and push herself to her feet. It hit something wet that gave more than a little, and she looked up to see what it was.

Her hand was inside a body. Fili's body, to be precise. She tried to throw herself away, her wounded leg collapsed underneath her, and she scrabbled backwards on her rear.

She had lost her knife somewhere, she realized, trying not to look at Fíli or at her hand, which was now covered in his blood. He had not felt dry or papery at all, she thought blankly, not like the other dead dwarves - but they had been long dead, not recently, and -

She did not want someone to find her body like that, whether it be dry and papery or wet and squishy. She did not, she realized, want to die after all.

As if Azog had heard this thought and meant only to thwart her, or maybe because she craned her neck to look back and up at him, he turned and strode out of sight. Presumably he meant to make a more decorous descent. Bolg appeared to have joined him.

Morwinyon tried to stand again, failed, and willed her leg to heal faster.

* * *

Tauriel reached out and caught at a ledge, wrenching her shoulder but stopping her fall. She grit her teeth and began to climb, feeling out footholds and handholds, preparing for a difficult climb - but the handholds were firm, and the footholds large. Tauriel was not going to question why a previously near-sheer mountain face was so easy to scale.

She reached the top and slung herself over, coming up to find Bolg gone. She almost overlooked Kili, tossed as if he was a bit of trash over the edge of the landing, down just a few steps.

Tauriel refused to fool herself. She had seen enough dead in her days as a scout and a captain of the guard. She checked him over anyway, finding no pulse but no real wound either until she tried to move him.

A broken back, then. Tauriel sat back, holding his hand for a moment she could not truly spare, before she remembered that she had last seen Morwinyon in danger, and Morwinyon was, to her knowledge, still alive. She leaned forward, kissed Kili's forehead, and stood to run up the stairs.

She met Azog and Bolg part way, and did not know which one to try to kill first. Azog held Delu. If Azog lived, if he held Delu, did that mean Morwinyon was dead?

"Take care of the nuisance," Azog ordered. Bolg leapt forward as Azog stepped aside, and Tauriel bared her teeth at him as she ducked out of the way of his first wild swing. The next came, and the next, and Tauriel finally managed to land a blow - a quick swipe across his cheek - but when she glanced where Azog had been he was gone.

Fine. Tauriel would kill him later. She launched herself at Bolg with a snarl.

* * *

Morwinyon had not managed to get to her feet by the time Azog came into view, but she had managed to drag herself across the rocky ground to somewhere that was not directly beside her dead husband. She had also managed to drag herself towards the dagger she had dropped, and was straining to reach it when Azog reached her first.

"I do not think I need Delu for this," he said, throwing the sword point-first into the rock, and dropped his weight onto her back. She yelped and strained, just a little farther, _just a little_ -

The blade attached to his arm pierced her wrist, pinning it to the ground. Morwinyon stared at it, too shocked for a moment to feel pain.

That did not last long. She yanked reflexively, trying to curl up, but it only hurt more, the blade scraping against bone and rock and tearing more.

She lay, panting, on the ground, Azog kneeling on her back and curled over her, blade pinning her wrist and hand to the ground. Her fingers actually brushed the hilt of the knife.

"Do you know," Azog said, using his hand to grab a handful of her braids and yanking her head to side so she stared up at him with one furious eye, "You look _remarkably_ like your mother."

Morwinyon tried to buck him off, but he just dug his knees harder into her back and kept the pressure on her wrist and head. She subsided, panting harshly.

"She was never my responsibility, of course," he continued. "Nor Erien. But you - you have _made_ yourself my responsibility, and I have always wondered if those black eyes of yours are any different from the rest of your kin's."

He released her braids, but before she considered what she could do about it he reached down.

The actual plucking of the eye from her head was, in retrospect, relatively painless. It felt odd, and it was not comfortable in the least, and it stung a little. Her vision was curiously distorted, with her left side pressed into the rock. It hurt when he yanked out everything attached to it.

Morwinyon decided she might hate the sound of herself screaming more than she hated the pain. She definitely hated Azog's laughter more, but she seemed incapable of doing anything but squirming weakly in response.

"I will kill you first," he said, "and if Bolg has failed to rid me of that red-haired nuisance I will kill her too, and the King Under the Mountain. But, well. He is already broken anyway, is he not?"

Morwinyon heard a roar, and suddenly Azog was dragged off of her. His hand-blade caught for a moment in her wrist, making her whimper, but it was gone a moment later, leaving a long but shallow cut along her arm. She rolled weakly to her side, cradling her wrist.

Thorin heaved again, and Azog hissed, curling up and lashing out like a snake. His heel grazed Thorin's chin, making the king under the mountain stagger back, but Thorin shook his head and raised his sword again, backing slowly away. Azog followed.

It was difficult to see like that, curled up on the ground. She tested her wrist - no. Morwinyon lay on the ground as Thorin lured Azog away, staring at the ground and thinking. Her leg was bruised and aching, but the wound had been narrow, and Azog had put his weight on her back. Her leg felt considerably better even if nothing else did. She would be able to get up now, she thought, if she tried.

Morwinyon did not want to get up. She hurt, and Fíli was dead, and she did not even have a weapon.

Yes, and? she thought to herself. You did not need Delu to fight a dragon. Orcs are smaller. Fíli is dead? Well, you lived nearly two hundred years without him, and you would have lived longer anyway. You had him for a time. You hurt? What has that to do with anything? So your eye is missing, so your hand is broken again, so what? You are afraid, is what. You are as afraid as your father was.

All of that was true. But what exactly did it change?

"Absolutely nothing," she whispered, and climbed to her feet.

"Azog," she croaked, when she had finally stood, but he did not hear so she had to say it again. Thorin looked past Azog, eyes wide and growing wider to see her standing. Azog turned too, stepping away from the king under the mountain.

"You said, me first," she panted, holding her injured hand to her chest. "Well. I am still alive, am I not?"

He charged. She waited until the last second to pivot on one foot, wavering only a little, and slammed a heel down just behind his knee.

What did it matter, that she was afraid? Morwinyon was a Princess of the Greenwood and Princess of Erebor, and she had faced a dragon.


	31. Chapter 31

Azog took the blow with a grunt and turned to face her and Thorin, who had come up beside her on her left.

"Get out while you can," Thorin said.

Morwinyon did not dignify that with an answer. Where would she go, exactly? Without Erebor, she had to go back to Mirkwood, where Tauriel had been banished and where her father would treat all her doings as a temporary lunacy.

"I do not think he is so terrible," she told Thorin. "He has not managed to kill me yet, not even holding Delu. Perhaps the only way he can defeat worthy opponents is to take them by surprise."

"I killed your pretty dwarf," Azog retorted.

Morwinyon sneered at him. "And how many did that take?"

He charged. Morwinyon realized she could not actually tell how far away from her he was as Thorin leapt forward to meet him. Something about her vision was off, and not just because she could not see to her right. Distance seemed to have gone sideways, or just indecipherable.

Her knife still lay a ways away, too. She lunged for it, missed, cursed, and finally managed to grab it. She considered taking Delu, but Thorin was too near. Her stinging ear reminded her not to trust the sword to hurt only orcs.

Close was best, she decided. Close up, she could figure out how far away Azog was relatively easily, and he would be easier to hit.

Of course, Thorin was currently where she needed to be. Morwinyon circled, waiting for an opportunity.

* * *

Bolg's armor was proving difficult to get past. Tauriel did not like it one bit. If she was in her ordinary frame of mind, she might have been able to slow down for a moment and analyze the best places to hit, or find ways to attack from the high ground and aim for his head or throat.

She was not in her ordinary frame of mind. She was aware that her fury was impeding her usual tactics - anger did not lend itself to being aware of her surroundings. She could not seem to help it.

Bolg tried to grab her by the throat again, and she let him, making sure he could not avoid her knife when she jammed it into his elbow and twisted. He dropped her. She kicked, bruising her foot on his greaves and making him grin down at her. Coughing, she made a grab for the knife still dangling from his elbow, but he stepped just out of reach. Instead she drove her other knife into his leg, just above where the greaves ended.

"No weapons," Bolg said, voice gargling but failing to disguise his glee. Tauriel stepped forward and jammed her knee up between his legs. He bent, gasping, but got his arms around her, crushing her arms to her sides and taking them both to the ground. Tauriel felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her temple.

Everything went dark, and Tauriel did not feel angry anymore. She did not feel anything.

* * *

Morwinyon darted in when she could, leaving a few scratches on Azog, but Thorin was his main opponent now and she was afraid to hit him with her newly impaired depth perception. Azog knew it, too: he barely acknowledged her except for one vicious kick, aiming for the knee he stabbed earlier. She backed up farther than necessary to avoid it, and Azog and Thorin were suddenly out of reach.

She could try throwing rocks, she thought. She might miss. She might hit Thorin. She thought furiously that it should be enough to lose vision on one side along with her eye, and not lose all concept of distance. She had been able to send an arrow exactly where she wanted it to go practically since Tauriel and Legolas had put a bow in her hand. The idea that she might have to relearn it, or resign herself to being merely _competent_ when before she had been extraordinary, was infuriating.

But Bifur got around with an axe blade in his head. A missing eye was not unheard of - surely there were others who had learned how to compensate. Others who could teach her?

Azog had to die first, obviously.

She was so focused on figuring her way around her lack of depth perception that she failed to consider the most obvious aspect of missing an eye: she could not see anything on her right side at all. Something barreled into her, slamming her to the ground.

 _Stupid_ , Morwinyon thought furiously. _Stupid, stupid, stupid -_ she jabbed backwards with her knife, but it skidded off metal, screeching before going uselessly off into air.

It was Bolg. But Bolg had been fighting Tauriel, and Tauriel - Tauriel could not have lost. Not against Bolg. Not against _anyone_ , Tauriel could not -

"She died easy," Bolg said in Morwinyon's ear, grip tight on the arm with the knife, humid breath leaving the feeling of an oil slick. "Just a little tumble on the rocks - "

He had left one arm free. It did not matter that it was the one with an injured wrist - Morwinyon remembered, finally, the little knife in her boot. She slammed her head back, hearing a crunch when her skull connected with Bolg's nose, and when he reared back she brought her knee up, drawing the knife. She yanked her other arm free, turning under him, using her weight and desperation to _twist_ , wrapping her legs around him so he ended up below her.

She jammed the knife into his eye and lay there, panting, atop his dead body.

"I wish you had died harder," she told it, and heard Dwalin scream Thorin's name.

She looked up. Azog had, it seemed, reclaimed Delu. Thorin lay with it in his chest, limp and impaled on the ice like a beetle on a card.

Azog turned his head slowly, the rest of his body unmoving, to look at her. Still watching her, he pulled Delu from Thorin's chest - Thorin let out a great heaving gasp that gurgled at the end.

Morwinyon shoved herself to her feet but once more misjudged, foot catching on Bolg's torso and sending her toppling over backwards as Azog stalked towards her.

He did not even have the decency to hurry, she thought irritably, once more dragging herself to her feet. How _dared_ he not rush? He wanted to toy with her some more, wanted to -

"Perhaps we will keep you," Azog said, stopping some unknowable distance away. "You have survived much, and my master has always wished for more Noldor to serve him. Look at you, halfway there already."

Morwinyon raised a hand to her face without thought, feeling the wounds that had already scarred over and the newer ones, avoiding the empty eye socket.

When she was seventeen years old, thirteen years after Laeriel had disappeared, Morwinyon had heard Inwiel discussing her mother with the previous captain of the guard.

"Pray she is dead," Inwiel had said. "The alternative is much worse."

The guard captain had argued, "Lady Laeriel would never allow herself to be twisted like that, dead or otherwise."

"Pray for that, then," Inwiel had said. "I do not want to face a dark army with our queen at its head."

The first orcs had, after all, been elves corrupted as they slept, and later contained those captured and tortured by the enemy.

One of them had to die, then - her or Azog. Morwinyon refused to be taken and used. She groped behind her for a rock.

"I hear Laeriel begged," he said. "Not for herself, they say. Too proud. Too _stupid_. Her guards, though - she begged for them. I hear they cut them into pieces living and sewed them back together. Who knows? Some of them might even be here."

He smiled, stepping carelessly over Bolg, filed teeth showing once more. It was definitely his blood on them. "Maybe you killed some of them."

He reversed his grip on Delu and brought it down.

Morwinyon did not have time to dodge. She had time only to close her eyes and hear the whistle as Delu cut down.

It occurred to her after two or three heartbeats that if she had not had time to dodge she should have been dead by now. She opened her eyes.

Azog stared. Not at her exactly, but just off to her right – Morwinyon turned her head cautiously and saw Delu embedded in the ground beside her. Cautiously she brought a hand up to her cheek, where the barest stinging had begun: her fingers came away with a thin line of red. Delu had left a cut so fine that it had barely begun to bleed. It might match the one on her left.

But Delu _liked_ to kill. She knew it, she had felt it – something welled up inside her. Not relief, not good humor, but something like both, and the bubble burst so that she had to open her mouth or suffocate on it.

Morwinyon laughed.

Azog snarled and made as if to pull Delu from the ground, but she rolled up on her shoulders, bent her knees, and slammed both feet up into his chin as hard she could. He released Delu with a snarl.

"I am my mother's daughter," she said, an answer to a question he had not asked, still breathless from laughter. "I think it likes her best."

She stood slowly, and as he grasped her shoulders she slammed the rock she grasped into his head. He stumbled back, a gash in his cheek, but not far enough, not enough that he lost his grip on her, so she hit him again. He took another confused step back, stumbling to his knees. It would have been a victory, but when he released her she tried to follow him and stumbled, her body screaming, but she ignored it. She stayed on her feet, rock still in hand, and tottered forward to hit him one more time.

Even Azog the Defiler could not remain unfazed by multiple blows to the face with a rock. He fell to the ground, struggling but only weakly. "No Delu," he said, weak and breathy.

" _I do not need Delu_ ," Morwinyon snarled. He twitched as if trying to rise, so she kicked him.

That was a mistake: he grabbed her foot. She overbalanced and hit the ground hard, knees protesting, skinning her knuckles but saving herself from hitting face first. Clear fluid dripped onto the rock in front of her face. It could not be tears – could it? She did not think she was crying.

Azog croaked a laugh. His hand released her foot but closed over her arm immediately after, just above the elbow. He dragged her forward –

Morwinyon head-butted him, and when his eyes crossed she kicked him over on his back. She scrambled on top of him, pinning his arms with her legs and wrapping her hands around his throat.

She squeezed.

He died.


	32. Chapter 32

It took Morwinyon a moment to make herself let go of Azog's throat, not least because she was half convinced that he was not actually dead. It was ridiculous: she had watched him die. She had _felt_ him die. He had made a noise similar to Thorin's, with a gurgle at the end, though of course he had not had as much air to do it with, since she had strangled him.

She loosed her fingers one by one, moving slowly away. He did not move. Just to be sure, she crawled over to Bolg's body, yanked out her knife, and returned to cut Azog's throat. She cleaned the knife and returned it to her boot.

What was next? What was she supposed to do, after killing Fíli 's killer? What was she supposed to do after -

She scrambled for the stairs, where Bolg had to have come from, when the thought occurred to her. Bolg had said, _she died easy_.

 _Just a tumble on the rocks_ , she heard again, as she hurled herself up the stairs, tripping more than once.

She stopped when she reached the landing and saw the flash of red hair.

"Tauriel?" she asked. Tauriel would wake up. She had never failed to be there when Morwinyon needed her. She would not fail to be now. Morwinyon _knew_ it.

"Tauriel," she said again, more sternly. Tauriel's chest was moving. It _was_. Morwinyon went to her to prove it.

It was not moving.

Morwinyon wondered if people were supposed to build up a resistance to losing people. Maybe mortals did, losing so many so often - but she remembered Dwalin, screaming Thorin's name, and she remembered Sigrid fighting for her father when she should have run, and she remembered Bard's desperation when Smaug might have killed his children. Her own father, who she knew still cried for her mother, and Thorin, who would have saved her at the end because his dead nephew loved her.

She managed to kneel beside Tauriel without too much difficulty, though wounds that she was sure would have healed entirely by now were only half-healed and her entire body hurt. Tauriel was not heavy when Morwinyon turned her over, and she was not yet stiff enough that arranging her properly was impossible. The only weapon she had to leave with Tauriel was the knife, so she did.

Begging would solve nothing, no matter how she wanted to beg Tauriel to wake up, to hug her, to make everything just a little bit better. She would see Tauriel again, when Morwinyon herself entered the halls of Mandos, whenever that would be. She just wished it would be sooner.

Morwinyon leaned down and kissed Tauriel's forehead. "Thank you," she whispered, and made herself stand. She had, after all, promised Tauriel. She had to find Kíli .

It was a short search. Morwinyon hurled a rock at one of the crumbling guard house walls when she found the body - she had actually passed him on her way up the steps. The rock hit, but not hard. She was denied even that satisfaction.

Is this punishment? she wanted to ask. Did I do wrong, by coming? Was I arrogant, to think I could do anything?

But she had done something. She had faced a dragon. She had killed Bolg, and Azog. She had helped, she knew she had. Erebor was free. The line of Durin was avenged, even if their champion was not who they would have chosen.

She had promised to return Kíli to his mother. She had not said he had to be alive for her to do so.

"I hope you are worth it," she told the mountain, and bent to gather Kíli up. The road to Ered Luin would be long, and she would not stay to be delayed by her father or anyone else. She had better get started now: she could forage on the way.

Who would, after all, notice that she was missing? The only people who ever had were dead.

Morwinyon started down the mountain.

* * *

It grew dark, and light again. Morwinyon could not feel her legs, which at least meant they were not hurting. In fact, nowhere on her body hurt much at all, which was odd given her many injuries. Maybe she was beginning to heal. She kept going.

It was dark again when she considered resting. She decided against it. She felt hot all over, and restless and itchy and tired at the same time. Kíli 's body seemed to generate heat of its own, which she did not think was normal. Then again, she did not know what was normal with dead bodies. Morwinyon shook her head and kept walking.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. She stumbled, dropped Kíli 's body, and fell face first into the shallow stream she had been following. It was more of a brook, really, or a trickle: barely anything, but enough for her to know that she was heading downhill somehow. Morwinyon considered, for a moment, leaving her face fully in the water before she remembered that she wanted to live. She turned her head enough that her nose and most of her mouth was out of the water and lay still. The water ran over and around her, a welcome relief to the heat she could find no source for but could not seem to shake.

"I just wanted to keep my promise," she whispered. Cool water leaked into her mouth when she did. She decided against getting up: she would rest here for a moment. She could pick Kíli 's body up and keep moving after a breather.

Laeriel would have kept walking, she thought, but Tauriel would have wanted Morwinyon to rest if she needed to, so she let her eyes slip shut.

She woke marginally cooler but mostly dry. That, and a sudden cessation of the buzzing in her ears that she had not noticed until it was no longer there, were the only apparent improvements to her situation. She was still on the ground. A quick flicker of eyelids proved that her right eye was definitely still missing. And now everything hurt.

An exploration of her face with her fingers yielded no further information: one side of her face felt strange, sensation playing hide-and-seek as her fingertips slid over it.

She sat up and a too-small coat fell from her shoulders. Kíli sat a few feet away, propped up against a fallen tree. Morwinyon stared. Kíli stared back.

"I thought you were dead," Morwinyon said blankly.

"You weren't doing so well yourself," he replied. He shifted against the tree and winced, hand going to his back, but continued anyway, "Aren't you supposed to heal quickly? I didn't know elves could even get fevers."

Elves did not, in point of fact, get fevers. Not unless there were darker forces than mere wounds involved. Somehow she doubted Delu had magical illness-inducing properties. She ignored that.

"You were not breathing."

"I don't remember much," he admitted, rubbing the back of his head. She noticed that spots of color burned in his cheeks, but she did not think he was embarrassed. Perhaps it was Kíli who had the fever.

Or maybe she did have a fever, and she was hallucinating. She narrowed her eyes - eye - and got to her knees, shuffling over to feel his face.

He _felt_ real. He also felt warm. She remembered that he had seemed to make his own heat, and had a sudden suspicion.

Laeriel had brought Thranduil back from the brink of death, or maybe even beyond it. No one had ever been entirely clear on that point. Perhaps if her mother could heal a man half melted by dragonfire, Morwinyon could do the same with a broken back.

If that was the case, though, why had Tauriel not woken, or Fíli ? She supposed she had not carried their bodies for an unspecified time through the wilderness. Was that why her body took so long to heal?

"I promised to take you to your mother," she said. "I promised Tauriel that if she could not do it I would."

"You were going to take my body to my mother," Kíli said flatly. "What were you going to do when it started to smell?"

Another reason not to die. _Smell?_

"I had not thought that far ahead," she said.

They fell silent. Forest sounds surrounded them, and the quiet chuckle of the stream. Morwinyon was kneeling on a stick, but she did not move. It was not her injured knee, anyway.

"Tauriel can't do it?" Kíli asked, but he meant something else.

"No," Morwinyon said. "Nor Fíli , nor Thorin."

Kíli nodded, jaw set. She waited for him to do something. Yell at her, maybe. Instead he crumpled, falling forward so he leaned against her, and dragged her into a hug.

Morwinyon, after a brief, stunned moment, wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

* * *

Author's Note: Is it cheesy to bring somebody back to life? You betcha. Is it gonna stop me? NOPE.


	33. Chapter 33

The rest of the journey was not as pleasant as that. Both of them seemed to run a constant fever, which Morwinyon, in her more lucid moments, was indignant about. They staggered west more or less, whoever was less feverish doing their best to course correct. Morwinyon was aware that only Kíli truly knew the way, but 'west towards the large slightly northern mountain range' was manageable.

Once Kíli screamed at her, on the tail end of a particularly bad bout of fever where they had both stopped walking not out of choice but because their legs simply would not carry them, demanding to know why she saved him if Thorin was dead, if Fíli was dead, if Tauriel was.

"I _promised_ ," she screamed back. "I promised Tauriel that I would save you, that I would take you home if you lived and she did not, and if you think for _one moment_ that I do not wish it was her and Fíli standing here instead of either of us then you can jump off the next cliff we see!"

They stood (well, Kíli sat) and glared at each other. They were in enemy territory – everywhere was enemy territory for them until they reached Ered Luin – and they were calling attention to themselves and it was neither of their proudest moments, but at least the air was being cleared.

"I will deliver you home and then you can be rid of me," Morwinyon said finally, volume properly modulated.

Kíli snorted. "You won't. You think you're the only one who promised to look after somebody?"

She frowned at him, and he frowned at her, and eventually they gave up being angry at each other as a bad job. It was too tiring. She hauled him to his feet and they set off again.

* * *

Morwinyon did not know how long they had been travelling, but she did know that her feet hurt. Kíli had collapsed at her feet. She could not rouse him further than a mumbled protest and a weak turn of his head away from her, and she was so, so tired. They had not really stopped since that afternoon they had shouted at each other, only stumbled and dozed against each other, and carrying (or dragging) Kíli was not an easy task. But still he would not answer, and she was lost. 'Head west' was an easy enough direction for an elf to follow, but navigating mountains was not her strong suit. She was not even certain she was _in_ the Blue Mountains, though she supposed if she headed farther west and hit the sea she could be nearly positive.

She could sit down, but she thought she might not get up again if she did. She could practically feel the fever, temperature ebbing and flowing through her as her body fought infection and who knew what else. Would yelling for help do anything? She did not think the odds of orcs in the Blue Mountains were good ones, but she could not remember if that was an actual fact or her exhausted brain playing tricks. She supposed she might welcome orcs at this point: dying fighting sounded more appealing than dying of fever and exhaustion. If dwarves found them would it be any better? Maybe if she called for Kíli's mother she would not be killed out of hand.

"Dís!" she cried, having decided on her course of action. Her voice cracked, making the name two inelegant syllables. She coughed and tried again. "I seek the Lady Dís! I seek-" she coughed again, and again, and could not seem to stop. So much for not sitting: she sank to the ground when she no longer had the breath to keep herself standing.

Someone hauled her upright some time later and held a cup to her lips. The first mouthful she spluttered up again, but enough water trickled down her throat that she could swallow the next. "Kíli," she croaked, reaching for him, but whoever had hold of her kept her where she was and she was too weak to give more than a token struggle.

A rapidfire conversation in Khuzdul followed.

Morwinyon wondered distantly, before she fell totally unconscious, why these dwarves had not commented on her elvishness.

* * *

She woke calling for Tauriel, who was not there. It did not make sense: Tauriel had always been there.

"She is not here right now," someone she did not know said. "You must sleep."

"Of course she is here," Morwinyon snapped. "She is always – she _should_ be here, where is she?"

"Rest," they said, holding her firmly down, when Morwinyon tried to sit up."You'll feel better when you wake up."

"Would you find her for me?" Morwinyon asked, subsiding. "I know she will come if she knows I am not well."

"I'll tell her."

Morwinyon nodded and let herself sleep.

When she woke next, her feet were hanging over the end of a bed and for a moment she thought Thorin looked down at her, which made no sense at all. If she was dead, she would not be in the same place as the king under the mountain. Even if she lived, she knew Thorin did not.

"Awake at last," said the dwarf, in Westron. They were not Thorin unless he had suddenly become an alto. The beard was different, too: fuller sideburns, no mustache, a delicate tuft of hair on the chin. It was difficult to tell in the candlelit room, but Morwinyon thought the hair might be a little lighter than Thorin's pitch black.

"Hello," Morwinyon said cautiously, also in Westron. "Where is Kíli?"

"Being tended to," the dwarf said. "I believe you were looking for me."

Morwinyon blinked up at her mother-in-law. Dis raised an eyebrow when she said nothing.

"Kíli has already told me of Thorin, and my son." Her voice wavered a little when she said Thorin's name, and she paused before she mentioned Fíli, but her face remained calm. "He said I am to treat you as family."

"I am family," Morwinyon said before considering that she might break the news more softly. She continued hurriedly, "I promised I would bring Kíli back to you. That is why I looked for you."

Dis leaned forward and picked up the end of Morwinyon's straggling marriage braid. Fíli's clasp glinted in the candlelight.

"You could not have brought me both?" she asked, but she did not sound accusatory. She looked only at the braid.

"No," Morwinyon said. With a pang, she offered, "Do you want it? The clasp?"

Dis snorted and dropped the braid, sitting back. "I have more of Fíli's things here, girl. I don't need one he gave to you."

Morwinyon should have known that. She looked away.

"What brought you to the mountain?" Dis asked. "Or did you follow Fíli?"

"I went to slay a dragon," Morwinyon said, looking up, stung in spite of herself. She had only followed Fíli on a technicality, and she had wanted to go anyway.

"Did you?"

"Not technically," Morwinyon muttered. Lest Dis think she had done nothing, she added, "I blinded him though."

The corner of Dis' mouth quirked. "Was Smaug very angry?"

"I think he was surprised," Morwinyon admitted. "At least at first, too surprised to be angry. Then - yes. He was angry."

Dis bared her teeth. "Good."

"It was not Smaug who slew Fíli and Thorin, though," Morwinyon said hesitantly. "That was Azog."

"Of course it was Azog," Dis said. "Of course. We cannot go anywhere but he appears and kills one of us."

"Two," Morwinyon corrected without thought, and winced. Dis raised an eyebrow, and Morwinyon offered meekly, "He is dead now. I cut his throat to make sure."

" _Good_ ," Dis said again. Morwinyon did not know what else there was to say on the subject. It _was_ good that Azog was out of everyone's misery.

"I would like to see Kíli, please," Morwinyon said finally.

"He was sleeping when I left him," Dis replied. "Of the two of you, it was difficult to tell who was the worse off - though Kíli doesn't seem to have a mark on him."

Morwinyon thought irritably that of course she healed Kíli but left herself as she was - her wrist was healed enough to use, obviously, since she had used it, but it hurt, and it was currently bandaged tightly, and the bottoms of her feet hurt.

"Of course," Dis continued, voice very dry, "You're the one who's pregnant."

* * *

Pregnancy was not as glamorous as it was made out to be, Morwinyon thought sourly eight months in, not for the first time. Elves took a year to give birth. Dwarves took nine months. No one was sure where this pregnancy would lay in that timeframe, so Morwinyon was stuck waiting, with aching feet, an unwavering appetite, near-constant headaches, and an unyielding feeling of tiredness that would not abate no matter how often or long she slept.

"Being tired is the worst," she told Kíli. "Well, the worst after the _waiting."_

"Mother says the nausea was the worst," he replied, and handed her another piece of buttered bread. Morwinyon eyed it dubiously but ate it.

"Only with Kíli," Dis said later, when Morwinyon asked. They sat in the kitchen, Morwinyon chopping root vegetables. "I was so proud of myself, with Fíli - I never threw up once. Then I had Kíli, and I threw up nearly every day."

She passed Morwinyon a bowl of soup. Morwinyon ate it. What Dis called soup was more like what Cevendis would have called stew back in Mirkwood, but Morwinyon liked it.

"But I had a more difficult birth with Fíli," Dis continued, looking past the soup pot and into the fire. "The second time is easier, you'll find - your body knows what to do."

Morwinyon did not point out that there would be no second time for her. Dis knew it, though, and Morwinyon saw her grimace just a little at her misstep. Dwarves, like elves, married only the once.

"Was Fíli a difficult child?" Morwinyon asked.

Dis' mouth quirked again, though this time it was one of her small smiles. "He'll tell you Kíli was the troublemaker. He might even be right, up to a point. But they would both get in trouble, and if you punished either of them in a way Fíli thought was unfair he wouldn't stand for it. He told Thorin once - he was sixteen, I think? - that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime and that he wouldn't cooperate. I don't remember what it was for."

"How did Thorin take it?" Morwinyon asked, ignoring out of courtesy the slip into present tense. They all did it sometimes.

"Poorly," Dis said, and laughed. "But Fíli still didn't cooperate, and usually he was meek as a kitten when we scolded."

Her eyes welled up, and Morwinyon reached cautiously out to lay two fingers across the back of her hand.

Dis sniffed. "Well. I scolded plenty, and so did Thorin. Dwalin was the indulgent one once Bertol died. We wanted an heir to be proud of and we got one. Were your parents as terrible?"

"I do not think you terrible," Morwinyon said. "Fíli loved you very much, I think. Kíli does."

Dis pulled her hand away and wiped her eyes with more efficiency than care. Morwinyon winced in spite of herself - she still needed to take care around her empty eye socket.

"I didn't ask for reassurance," Dis said after a moment. Morwinyon suspected the silence was so Dis could collect herself to speak normally. She was not entirely successful.

"My mother is gone," Morwinyon said, and, remembering her father's words at the mountain, added, "I knew her poorly. Tauriel was quick to encourage."

"Tauriel," Dis said thoughtfully, no doubt curious about this woman whose name she kept hearing but who she knew nothing else of.

Morwinyon felt tears prick her own eyes, and looked down into her bowl before Dis could see them. "She is gone, also."

Dis served her another bowl of soup. Morwinyon stirred it, and said finally, "I knew my father poorly too, but I do not think that was my fault. I do not want to go back."

"Then you don't have to," Dis said, and that was that.

* * *

Morwinyon, still waiting for her body or possibly her unborn child's body to decide the end of her pregnancy, realized soon after why no one had commented on her elvishness.

"What do you mean you aren't Dunedain," Dis said flatly at dinner, when Morwinyon made an offhand comment about elvish birthing customs.

Morwinyon looked at Kíli. Kíli winced.

"You were _glowing,_ last I remembered," he said. "I thought she knew!"

Morwinyon reached up in spite of herself, knowing what she would find but running her fingers over the edges of her ears anyway. One was a nearly smooth, flat edge, just below where she supposed a human's rounded ear tip would be. The other was jagged across the top, hide-and-seek sensation marking areas burned by dragon blood.

"I really did used to have nice ears," she said, knowing she sounded plaintive.

Dis put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. "No one will accept half elven heirs," she said, voice muffled. "Not right now, possibly not ever. Not Longbeards. And no one will follow me now that Dain has claimed Erebor. Kíli, maybe."

" _No,"_ Kíli said, more forcefully than Morwinyon had ever heard him. Even Dis looked taken aback. "I don't want it. It's Fíli and Morwinyon's child's birthright, not mine."

"I will not fight to put an infant on a throne," Morwinyon said. "What if I go to all that trouble, and they do not want it?"

"Dain is going to ruin all my hard work," Dis muttered. "But then, if I'm around I'll ruin all of his."

"I don't want to go back," Kíli said.

Morwinyon gripped his shoulder and said, "Then you do not have to."

Dis sighed again. When most of the Longbeards left for Erebor and suggested that she go with them, Dis told them not to bother her.

So they stayed.

For the moment.

* * *

Keep an eye out for the epilogue (and the sequel!)


	34. Epilogue

Though Morwinyon had decided that Kíli would be in charge of the child's father-name, she had stipulations.

"Not Durin," she said. "And nobody had better try to name it after my father either."

The fact that she was still having this conversation while in labor would, she hoped, impress upon Kíli how important she found these parameters.

He seemed much less impressed than she would have hoped.

"And no portents," Morwinyon continued. "None of this 'glint in the dark' nonsense I was stuck with."

"You like your name," Kíli said, though he sounded strained.

Morwinyon thought irritably that she was the one in labor, and should therefore be the strained one. Kíli seemed to sense her frustration - or perhaps he only reacted to how hard she gripped his hand.

"I like it better than my other name," she retorted as Dis said something Morwinyon was sure was very important but that she could not quite absorb through another wave of pain.

Whatever Kíli said was lost too - Morwiynon lost track of time and individual events. Everything blurred together in a haze of pain and Dis' calm voice. Somewhere Dis explained to her that Morwinyon was not dilating but was still trying to give birth anyway, and something about trying something that would be painful but would save at least the child, because at this rate Dis was sure neither of them would survive.

Morwinyon remembered clearly saying, "A dragon did not kill me, and Azog and Bolg did not kill me, and I will be _damned_ if my own child does," and Dis barking a laugh.

Morwinyon was nearly certain she passed out. Probably it was a mercy, for when she was finally aware of her surroundings her body hurt much less than it had for ten months.

"Everyone should do surgery on elves," Dis said. She was holding a bundle in her arms. "They heal up fast, when their bodies aren't putting everything into keeping babies alive."

"Never again," Morwinyon said. "But since I am here already, I would hold the child."

Kíli laughed from her other side, the sound a breath away from hysteria. "Which one?" he asked as she turned to look at him.

Kíli also held a bundle. His began to shriek, and was echoed by the one in Dis' arms.

There were _two?_ Morwinyon gave up making sense of anything and said, "Both."

"Angion," Kíli said as Dis handed Morwinyon one baby. The little boy stopped shrieking, but he did keep frowning. Morwinyon traced a finger between his brows and smiled, proud of herself, before she held out an arm for her other child.

"Tauriel," he said firmly, passing the little girl over. Tauriel Morwinyonien (what a _name._ Maybe she could get away with leaving out a syllable. How would the boy be styled? Angion Fílien?) blinked up at her mother, mouth still open but no sound emerging. She closed it and squinted suspiciously up at Morwinyon.

"Hello," Morwinyon murmured in Sindarin. Kíli had badgered her for remedial lessons, which was how he had known how to name Angion as he had. "I am going to be a good parent, I hope you realize. I had at least one good example."

Angion sighed, unimpressed, and appeared to doze off again. Tauriel, after a moment, seemed almost to shrug and did the same.

* * *

Tauriel blinked her eyes open to beauty. She squinted, though the light was not too harsh. It was, in fact, perfect, lending a soft glow to the quiet copse of trees she found herself in.

Suspicion set in immediately. This was the Greenwood, as it had been in her youth, but it was not anything like this now: now it was Mirkwood, and quiet, beautiful copses of trees were near nonexistent - not to mention how certain she was that when she had last opened her eyes, she was on a cold grey mountaintop.

 _Welcome, Tauriel_ , a quiet voice said, the whisper of a night breeze wrapped around the snapping crack of a bonfire.

"Welcome where?" she asked, spinning. No one stood behind her, or to either side. "Show yourself!"

 _I am doing my best_ , the voice said, sounding vaguely apologetic. _You have come to the halls of Mandos, to rest in peace_.

"I do not have time for that," Tauriel said before the rest of the information registered. "No. Send me back."

 _What do you have to go back to?_ Mandos inquired. _You have been banished from your home. Kíli is dead. Will the dwarves accept you?_

"Morwinyon will make them," Tauriel retorted, and started for the edge of the trees. They seemed to go on forever, now, no longer a copse. She stopped and looked up, searching for the stars that would lead her east.

The constellations were different. Tauriel supposed she should have expected that.

 _Morwinyon will join you here_ , Mandos pointed out.

"Not soon, if I have anything to say about it. If you will not send me back, at least give me directions east. I can find a boat."

 _Can you sail?_ he asked, sounding curious.

"I will figure it out."

 _You will capsize in a day and return here._

"I will _swim_ ," Tauriel said nonsensically, beginning to walk again. She knew there was something wrong. She had left something unfinished, or just undone. Why had she been exiled? Why did she need the dwarves to accept her?

 _Here you leave aside cares,_ Mandos said. _Here you do not need to worry_.

"You have never raised a child like Morwinyon," Tauriel said. "Worry is constant."

 _Stay_ , he said. _Rest_.

" _No_ ," she snapped, shoving aside a suddenly larger branch. "Morwinyon needs me, and I will go."

 _Are all silvan so stubborn as you?_

"There are few as stubborn as I," Tauriel told the Valar, and with her next step the trees wavered, stone showing through.

 _Thank goodness for that_ , she thought she heard Mandos mutter as she opened her eyes to sharp pain in the side of her head and aching, cold joints.

Then she remembered, and it was not her joints or head that hurt the worst.

* * *

Later, after she scoured the area for some sign of Morwinyon, some _hint_ of her, or her body, or Kíli's body, Thranduil found her beside Fíli. She had one hand over his wound, as if she could heal it still, and the other fisted in his necklace, as if that would help anything.

"You could not find her either," he said.

When she did not answer, he said, "Come away, Tauriel."

"No," she said. She had said no to Mandos. Saying no to Thranduil was nothing.

She had already said no to Thranduil, come to think of it.

"Tauriel," he said, a hint of bite in the tone, but he did not sound as he did when he was angry.

"I thought I could save one of them," she said. She had thought she could save _Morwinyon,_ but she would have settled for Fíli, she would have, just one. _Mandos,_ she thought furiously, _you could have warned me._

Thranduil sat beside her, settling carefully, close enough that she could feel that he still shook.

"Why does this hurt so much?" she demanded. "I will see Morwinyon again someday - I might have seen her sooner - and I did not _know_ Fíli, not really, and Kíli - why does it hurt? How do you stand it?"

"I stand it poorly," he said, with the wry lilt she remembered from a childhood that had been absent of parents but had a king who had cared for all of his people generally and the little orphan girl specifically. Thranduil had thought her impertinence amusing then, and had always been on her side, and had not stinted with absently offered affection or easy encouragement. Laeriel had been the more reserved of the two.

But then Laeriel had gone, and Tauriel had only _almost_ found her, and Morwinyon had needed Tauriel more than Thranduil had liked.

Tauriel slid Fíli's necklace from its place, releasing the body entirely so she could wrap the necklace around her wrist. Thranduil did not comment, though he watched the string of gems with hungry eyes.

"I was wrong, I think," he said. "When I told you your feelings were not real. Because I was angry. Because I was - am - afraid. You were right about that too. But you have always loved recklessly, and wholeheartedly, and often. You love my children - perhaps even me still, a little. I should have known you could love a dwarf or two."

He reached out, slowly, still with that little tremor in his hands, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and did not touch the string of gems around her wrist. "So, Tauriel. You ask me why it hurts so much? It is because it was real."

He did not try to apologize, but he sat with her until the dwarves came to bear Fíli and Thorin away, and he did not offer insult to Dwalin when the dwarf stopped before Tauriel.

"I saw the girl," Dwalin said, voice rough and even deeper than usual. "Before Thorin - before. After, I didn't see her again."

He hesitated, eying them both when they said nothing, but finally he walked away.

It was Bilbo who arrived with the other half of the gemstone string, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Everyone's very sorry," he said. "For your loss."

"Oh," said Thranduil helplessly, staring down at the string in his hands.

"This was longer," he said when he had untangled it, but he did not sound accusing. He sounded lost.

"Morwinyon broke it," Bilbo said. "She promised not to take any of them from the mountain, but she said she had to give Fíli something."

Thranduil found the broken end, nearly indistinguishable from the other but for the slightest twist of the last link in the already nearly invisible chain. "Of course she did," he said. "This was her mother's, you know."

"I know," Bilbo said, fidgeting. Tauriel watched the byplay, too tired to reassure Bilbo and not quite ready to forgive Thranduil.

"She cried when it was lost," the king continued. "I do not think I had seen her cry since Gil-Galad's death, but then, he gave it to her. They took it, and they kept it, and then they took and kept my daughter too."

Neither Tauriel nor Bilbo had anything to say to that that Thranduil would listen to.

"Leave me," Thranduil ordered.

Tauriel got to her feet to follow Bilbo, and had taken a few steps when Thranduil said, "Tauriel. Your banishment is lifted. You may come home if you choose."

Tauriel did not want to thank him for fixing something that he should not have done in the first place, but when she looked back Thranduil sat still, face buried in his hands, the ends of the strand of jewelry glimmering through his fingers and the spill of it across his lap glinting, sliding slowly across his knee towards the ground.

She did not thank him, but she did say, "Maybe."

* * *

Legolas had taken his leave of Tauriel earlier, citing a mission from his father. She had hugged him and bid him farewell with some relief - Legolas was not very good at sympathy. He wanted to fix things, and there was nothing here that he could fix.

Now she sat in the tombs under the mountain, wishing for stars but keeping her vigil. The dwarves had not begrudged her request: she thought they might consider her in some way to have been promised to Kíli. They were not in the most technical sense correct, but she felt as if they were.

So she watched his and Morwinyon's family, as she could not watch him and Morwinyon, and frowned when she heard a noise.

Were there rats in Erebor? Tauriel unslung her bow.

The noise came again.

It was inside the tomb. Fíli's, to be exact. Tauriel stared at it.

Again.

It sounded, she realized, as if someone was stuck and trying to get out.

She thought of Laeriel, and how Tauriel herself had called on Varda and Nienna and Mandos earlier, and scrambled for the lid of the stone covered coffin.

She shoved, someone else did too, and the slid a half-inch off, which at least meant there would be air. Tauriel braced her feet and shoved. An inch now.

Tauriel did not know how long it took, but Fíli looked up at her, wild-eyed, and asked something in Khuzdul with a vehemence that she assumed meant that the phrase included profanity.

She dragged him out and made him lay on the ground, fighting off the heavy ceremonial armor they had dressed him in sos he could inspect his wound.

There was only a handprint-shaped burn, and it looked weeks healed.

Fíli asked the question again, and she shook her head. "I do not speak Khuzdul," she reminded him.

"Am I not dead?" he asked in westron.

Tauriel could not help it. She laughed.

* * *

Author's Notes: "Only one?" I took that as a challenge. Have a happy(ish) ending, and keep an eye out for the sequel!


End file.
